Tke 

Dover 

Road 


'JiftJ^S. 


^  Ji^RP£f\  > 


^  //- 


JOHNA.SEAVERNS 


TUFTS   UNIVERSITY   LIBRARIES 


3  9090  014  562  769 


Webster  family  Library  of  Veterinary  Mediane 

Cummings  School  of  Veterinary  Mediane  at 

Tufts  University 

200  Westtx>ro  Road 

North  Grafton,  MA  015S6 


THE  DOVER   ROAD 


HISTORIES     OF     THE     ROADS 

—    BY   — 

Charles  G.  Harper. 


THE  BRIGHTON  ROAD  :    The  Classic  Highway 

to  the  South. 
THE  GREAT  NORTH  ROAD  :    London  to  York. 
THE  GREAT  NORTH  ROAD  :  York  to  Edinburgh. 
THE    DOVER    ROAD  :     Annals    of    an    Ancient 

Turnpike. 
THE     BATH     ROAD  :      History,     Fashion     and 

Frivolity  on  an  old  Highway. 
THE   MANCHESTER  AND    GLASGOW    ROAD  : 

London  to  Manchester. 
THE    MANCHESTER     ROAD  :      Manchester     to 

Glasgow. 

THE  HOLYHEAD  ROAD  :    London  to  Birming- 
ham. 

THE     HOLYHEAD     ROAD :       Birmingham     to 

Holyhead. 
THE    HASTINGS    ROAD  :     And    The    "  Happy 

Springs  of  Tunbridge." 
THE  OXFORD.  GLOUCESTER  AND  MILFORD 

HAVEN  ROAD  :    London  to  Gloucester. 
THE  OXFORD,  GLOUCESTER  AND  MILFORD 

HAVEN  ROAD  •   Gloucester  to  Milford  Haven. 
THE     NORWICH     ROAD        An     East     AngUan 

Highway. 
THE  NEWMARKET.  BURY,   THETFORD  AND 

CROMER  ROAD. 
THE    EXETER    ROAD  :     The    West    of    England 

Highway. 
THE    PORTSMOUTH    ROAD. 
THE    CAMBRIDGE,    KING'S  LYNN  AND   ELY 

ROAD. 


MERCERY   LANE,   CANTERBURY. 


The 

DOVER      ROAD 

Annals    of    an    Ancient    Turnpike 
By  CHARLES  G.  HARPER 

Illustrated  by  the  Author  and  from  Old  Prints 
and  Portraits 


o     k 


Hartford,  Connecticut 
EDWIN  VALENTINE   MITCHELL 


First  Published  1895. 
Second  and  HtvLsed  Edition  1922. 


Manufactured  in  England  by  C.  Tinling  &  Co.,  Ltd. 
53,    Victoria  Stret^t,   Liverpool, 
and  187,  Fleet  Street,  London. 


/T  has  been  said,  by  whom  I  knoiv  not,  that  "  jwefaces 
to  books  are  like  signs  to  public-houses  ;  they  are 
intended  to  give  one  an  idea  of  the  kind  of  enter- 
tainment to  be  found  within.''  But  this  preface  is  not  to 
be  like  those  ;  for  it  would  require  an  essay  in  itself  to 
give  a  comprehensive  idea  of  the  Dover  Road,  in  all  its 
implications.  A  road  is  not  merely  so  many  miles  of 
highway,  more  or  less  well-maintained.  It  is  not  only 
sojnething  in  the  surveyor's  way  ;  but  history  as  well. 
It  is  life,  touched  at  every  point. 

The  Dover  Road — the  highway  between  London  and 
that  most  significant  of  ajjproaches  to  the  Continent  of 


PREFACE 

Europe — would  have  been  something  much  more  in  its 
mere  name  had  it  not  been  for  the  accident  of  London  : 
one  of  the  greatest  Occidents.  It  ivould  have  been  considered 
a  part  of  the  great  road  to  Chester  and  to  Holyhead  :  the 
route  diagonally  across  England,  from  sea  to  sea,  which 
really  in  the  first  instatice  it  was. 

For  the  Dover  Road  is  actually  the  initial  limb  of  the 
Watling  Street :  that  prehistoric  British  trackway 
adopted  by  the  Romans  and  by  them  engineered  into  a 
road ;  and  it  would  seeju  that  those  Roman  engineers, 
instructed  by  the  Imperial  authorities,  considered  rather 
the  military  and  strategic  needs  of  those  times  than  those  of 
LoNDiNiuM  ;  for  London  was  not  on  the  direct  road  they 
made  ;  and  it  was  only  at  a  later  date,  zvhen  it  was  groivn 
commercially,  they  constructed  an  alternative  route  that 
served  it. 

It  would  be  rash  to  declare  that  more  history  has  been 
enacted  on  this  road  than  on  any  other,  although  we  may 
suspect  it ;  but  certainly  history  is  more  spectacular  along 
these  miles.  Those  pageants  and  glittering  processions 
are  of  the  i^ci'^t :  they  ended  in  1840,  when  raihvays  were 
about  to  supplant  the  road  ;  when  the  last  distinguished 
traveller  along  these  miles.  Prince  Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg 
Gotha,  came  up  by  carriage  to  zved  Queen  T^ictoria. 

CHARLES  G.  HARPER. 
February,  1922. 


THE    ROAD    TO    DOVER 


London  Bridge  (Surrey  side)  to- 


Borough  (St.  George's  Church) 

Kent  Street 

Newington  ("  Bricklayers'  Arms 

New  Cross  . 

Deptford 

Blackheath . 

Shooter's  Hill 

Shoulder  of  Mutton  Green 

Belle  Grove 

Welling 

Crook  Log  . 

Bexley  Heath 

Crayford  (Cross  River  Cray) 

Dartford  (Cross  River  Darent) 

John's  Hole 

Horn's  Cross 

Greenhithe 

Northfleet    . 

Gravesend  (Jubilee  Tower) 

Milton 

Chalk  Street 

Gad's  Hill  ("  Falstaff  "  Inn) 

Strood  (Cross  River  Medway) 

Rochester  (Guildhall)    . 

Chatham  (Town  Pier)  . 

Rainham     .... 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


London  Bridge  (Surrey  Side)  to- 


MIT.F.S 

Moor  Street 34^ 

Newington  .... 

36| 

Key  Street 

38 

Chalk  Well 

39 

Sittingbourne  (Parish  Church) 

40 

Bapchild      .... 

41i 

Radfield       .... 

41| 

Green  Street 

421 

Ospringe      .... 

451 

Preston        .... 

461 

Boughton-under-Blean . 

49 

Boughton  Hill 

50 

Dunkirk      .... 

5U 

Harbledown 

54 

Canterbury  (Cross  River  Stour) 

55i 

Gutteridge  Gate  . 

57 

Bridge  (Cross  River  Stour)     . 

581 

Halfway  House    . 

62f 

Lydden        .... 

65| 

Temple  Ewell 

671 

Buckland     .... 

69 

Dover  ..... 

70| 

LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Mercery  Lane,  Canterbury         .  Frontispiece 

South  Gateway,  Old  London  Bridge  . 

The  "  George  " 

Old  Telegraph  Tower,  Tooley  Street  . 

The  "  Spur  "  Inn 

Saturday  Night  in  the  Old  Kent  Road 
Greenwich  Observatory    .... 

Arms  of  Spielman  and  his  first  wife  . 
Dart  ford  Church      ..... 

The  "  Bull  "  Inn,  Dartford 

Dartford  Bridge       ..... 

Riverside,  Gravesend        .... 

Denton  Chapel  .  .  .  .  . 

Joe  Gargery's  Forge  .... 

Ancient  Carving — Chalk  .... 

Sailors'  Folly  ...... 

Jack  come  home  again      .... 

The  Light  Fantastic.     Bank  Holiday  at  Chalk 
Gad's  Hill  Place.     Residence  of  Charles  Dickens 
The  "  Falstaff,"  Gad's  Hill 
A  Good  Samaritan  ..... 

Rochester  Castle  and  the  Medway 

High  Street,  Rochester  :   Eastgate  House  . 

Jack  in  his  Glory     ..... 


PAGE 

6 

7 

10 

15 

21 

26 

52 

54 

56 

59 

69 

80 

81 

82 

83 

84 

85 

92 

94 

111 

116 

122 

123 


THE  DOVER   ROAD 

PAGE 

The  liniisioii  of  Eiigland  :    England  .  .  .      127 

The  Invasion  of  England  :    Erance     . 

Paid  off  at  Chatham 

Key  Street      ..... 

Yard  of  the  "  Lion  "  Hotel,  Sittingbourne 

Osi)ringe  :    a  June  hop-garden  . 

''  Sir  William  Courtenay  " 

"  Courtenay  " 

Westgate,  Canterbury 

The  Due  de  Nivernais 

The  Blaek  Prinee's  Arms  and  Badge 

"  A  Gorgeous  Creature 

William  Clements     . 


131 
135 
148 
160 
167 
177 
180 
190 
193 
205 
215 
216 
218 
223 
227 
231 
239 
241 
Dover  Castle,  from  the  Folkestone  Road  :  Sunrise     251 


Bridge    . 

"  Old  England's  Hole  " 

Barham  Downs 

Watling  Street  :   Moonrise 

Floods  at  Alkham  :   The  Drellingore  Stream 

St.  Radigund's  Abbey       .... 


Of  all  the  historic  highways  of  England,  the  story 
of  the  old  Road  to  Dover  is  the  most  difficult  to  tell. 
Xo  other  road  in  all  Christendom  (or  Pagandom  either, 
for  that  matter)  has  so  long  and  continuous  a  history, 
nor  one  so  crowded  in  every  age  with  incident  and 
associations.  The  writer,  therefore,  who  has  the 
telling  of  that  story  to  accomplish  is  weighted  with  a 
heavy  sense  of  responsibility,  and  though  (like  a  village 
boy  marching  fearfully  through  a  midnight  chiu'chyard) 
he  whistles  to  keep  his  courage  warm,  yet,  for  all  his 
outAvard  show  of  indifference,  he  keeps  an  awed  glance 
upon  the  shadows  that  beset  his  path,  and  is  prepared 
to  take  to  his  heels  at  any  moment. 

And  see  what  portentous  shadows  crowd  the  long 
reaches  of  the  Dover  Road,  and  demand  attention  ! 
Cjcsar's  presence  haunts  the  weird  plateau  of  Barham 
Downs,  and  the  alert  imagination  hears  the  tramp 
of  the   legionaries   aloniJ[   Watlino-   Street   on   moonlit 


2  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

nights.  Shades  of  Britons,  Saxons,  Danes,  and 
Normans  people  the  streets  of  tlie  old  towns  throngh 
which  the  highway  takes  its  course,  or  crowd  in 
warlike  array  upon  the  hillsides.  Kings  and  queens, 
nobles,  saints  of  different  degrees  of  sanctity,  great 
blackguards  of  every  degree  of  blackguardism,  and 
ecclesiastics  holy,  haughty,  proud,  or  pitiful,  rise  up 
before  one  and  terrify  with  thoughts  of  the  space  the 
record  of  their  doings  Avould  occupy  ;  in  fine,  the 
wraiths  and  phantoms  of  nigh  upon  two  thousand 
years  combine  to  intimidate  the  historian. 

How  rich,  then,  the  road  in  material,  and  how 
embarrassing  the  accumulated  wealth  of  twenty 
centuries,  and  how  impossible,  too,  to  do  it  the  barest 
justice  in  this  one  volume  !  Many  volumes  and  bulky 
should  go  toward  the  telling  of  this  story  ;  and  for  the 
proper  presentation  of  its  pageantry,  for  the  due 
setting  forth  of  the  lives  of  high  and  low,  rich  or  poor, 
upon  these  seventy  miles  of  highwa}^,  the  rugged- 
wrought  periods  of  Carlyle,  the  fateful  march  of 
Thomas  Hardy's  rustic  tragedies,  the  sly  humour  and 
the  felicitous  phrases  of  a  Stevenson,  should  be  added 
to  the  whimsical  drolleries  of  Tom  Ingoldsby.  To 
these  add  the  lucid  arrangement  of  a  Macaulay  shorn 
of  rhetorical  redundancies,  and,  with  space  to  command 
one  might  hope  to  give  a  glowing  word-portraiture  of 
the  Dover  Road  ;  while,  with  the  aid  of  pictorial  genius 
like  that  possessed  by  those  masters  of  their  art, 
Morland  and  Rowlandson,  illustrations  might  be 
fashioned  that  would  shadow  fortli  the  life  and  scenery 
of  the  wayside  to  the  admiration  of  all.  Without 
these  gifts  of  the  gods,  who  shall  say  he  has  done  all 
this  subject  demands,  nor  how  sufliciently  narrate 
within  the  compass  of  these  covers  the  doings  of  sixty 
generations  ? 

The  Dover  Road,  then,  to  make  a  beginning  with 
our  journej^  is  measured  from  the  south  side  of 
London  Bridge,  and  is  seventy  and  three-quarters 
of  a  mile  long. 


THE   COACHES 


II 


If  we  had  wished,  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  'of 
Queen  Victoria,  to  proceed  to  Dover  with  the  utmost 
expedition  and  despatch  consistent  with  coach- 
travelUng,  we  should  have  booked  seats  in  Mr.  Benjamin 
Worthy  Home's  "  Foreign  Mail,"  which  left  the 
General  Post-Office  in  Saint  Martin's-le-Grand  every 
Tuesday  and  Frida}^  nights,  calling  a  few  minutes 
later  at  the  "  Cross  Keys,"  Wood  Street,  and  finally 
arriving  at  Dover  in  time  for  the  packets  at  8.15  the 
following  morning  ;  thus  beating  by  half  an  hour  the 
time  of  any  other  coach  then  running  on  this  road. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  objected  to  night  travel, 
we  should  hs,ve  had  to  sacrifice  that  half-hour,  and 
go  by  either  the  "  Express,"  which,  starting  from  the 
"  Golden  Cross,"  Charing  Cross,  at  10  a.m.  every 
morning,  did  the  journey  in  nine  hours  ;  or  else  by  the 
"  Union  "  coach,  which,  travelling  at  an  equal  speed, 
left  the  "  White  Bear,"  Piccadilly,  at  9  a.m.  Not  that 
these  were  the  only  choice.  Coaches  in  plenty  left 
town  for  Dover ;  the  "  Eagle,"  the  "  Phoenix," 
Worthington's  Safety  Coaches,  the  "  Telegraph," 
the  "  Defiance,"  the  "  Royal  Mail,"  and  the  "  Union 
Night  Coach,"  starting  from  all  parts  of  London. 
The  famous  "  Tally-ho  Coach,"  too,  between  London 
and  Canterbury,  left  town  every  afternoon,  and  did 
the  fifty-four  miles  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye — that  is 
to  say  (with  greater  particularity  and  less  vague 
figure  of  speech)  in  five  hours  and  a  half ;  while 
Stanbury  and  Rutley's  fly-vans  and  wagons  conveyed 
goods  and  i^assengers  who  could  not  afford  the  fares 
of  the  swifter  coaches  between  the  "  George," 
Aldermanbury,  and  Dover  at  the  rate  of  six  miles 
an  hour. 

Besides  these  methods  of  conveyance,  numerous 
coaches,  vans,  omnibuses  and  carriers '-carts  plied 
between  the  Borough  and   Chatham,   Rochester  and 


4  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

Strood  ;  or  served  the  villages  between  London  and 
Gravesend.  Indeed,  at  this  period,  we  find  the  crack 
coaches,  the  long-distance  mails,  starting  from  London 
city,  leaving  to  the  historic  inns  of  Southwark  only 
the  goods- wagons,  the  short-stages,  and  the  carriers '- 
carts.  In  1837,  also,  you  could  vary  the  order  of 
your  going  to  Dover  by  taking  boat  from  London 
to  Gravesend,  Whitstable,  or  Heme  Bay,  and  at  any 
of  those  places  waiting  for  the  coach.  The  voyage 
to  Heme  Bay  took  six  hours,  and  the  coach  journey 
from  thence  to  Dover  occupied  another  four,  the  whole 
costing  but  ten  shillings  ;  which,  considering  that  you 
could  get  horribly  sea-sick  in  the  six  hours  between 
London  and  Heme  Bay,  and  had  four  hours  of  jolting 
in  which  to  recover,  w  as  decidedly  cheap,  and  not  to  be 
matched  nowadays. 

The  traveller  of  this  time  would  probably  select 
the  "  Express  "  from  the  "  Golden  Cross,"  because 
this  was  a  convenient  and  central  starting-point  from 
which  that  excellent  coach  started  at  an  hour  when 
the  day  was  well-aired.  The  coachman  of  that  time 
was  the  ultimate  product  of  the  coaching  age,  and  we 
who  travel  by  train  do  not  see  anything  like  him. 
He  owed  something  to  heredity,  for  in  those  days  son 
succeeded  to  father  in  all  kinds  of  trades  and  profes- 
sions much  more  frequently  than  now  ;  for  the  rest 
of  his  somewhat  alarming  appearance  he  was  indebted 
partly  to  the  rigours  of  the  weather  and  partly  to  the 
rum-and-milk  for  which  he  called  at  every  tavern 
where  the  coach  stopped — and  at  a  good  many  where 
it  had  no  business  to  stop  at  all.  As  a  result  of  these 
several  causes,  he  generally  had  cheeks  like  pulpit 
cushions,  puffy,  and  of  an  apoplectic  hue,  and  a  plum- 
coloured  nose  with  red  spots  on  it  ;  he  was,  in  fact, 
what  Shakespeare  would  call  a  "  purple-hued  malt- 
worm,"  He  shaved  scrupulously.  A  rugged  beaver 
hat  with  a  curly  brim  and  a  coat  of  many  capes  would 
have  identified  him  as  a  coachman,  even  if  the  evidence 
of  his  face  had  failed,  and  his  talk,  which  consisted  of 


LONDON   BRIDGE  5 

"  G^^-hups,"  biting  repartees  administered  to  passing 
Jehus,  and  contemptuous  references  to  the  railways, 
which  were  just  beginning  to  be  spoken  of,  was  solely 
professional. 

Some  of  these  latter-day  coaches  went  direct  from 
the  West  End,  over  Westminster  Bridge,  and  so  to 
the  Old  Kent  Road,  but  others  had  to  call  at  various 
inns  on  the  way  to  the  City,  and  so  came  over  London 
Bridge  in  the  approved  fashion. 


Ill 

And  the  London  Bridge  by  which  they  would  cross 
in  1837  was  a  very  different  structure  from  that  driven 
over  by  their  forbears  of  twenty  years  previously. 

So  late  as  1831,  Old  London  Bridge  remained  that, 
built  in  1176,  had  thus  for  nearly  seven  hundred  years 
borne  the  traffic  to  and  from  London,  and  had  stood 
firmly  centuries  of  storms  and  floods,  and  all  the 
attacks  of  rebels  from  Norman  to  late  Tudor  times. 
Its  career  was  closed  on  the  1st  of  August,  1831,  when 
the  new  bridge,  that  had  taken  seven  years  in  the 
building,  was  opened.  The  old  bridge  crossed  the 
Thames  at  a  point  about  a  hundred  feet  to  the  eastward 
of  the  present  one  ;  the  city  approach  leading  steeply 
down  a  narrow  street  by  Monument  Yard,  and  passing 
close  under  the  projecting  clock  of  Saint  Magnus  the 
Martyr.  The  view  was  eminently  picturesque,  with 
the  many  and  irregular  pointed  arches  of  the  bridge  ; 
the  rush  of  water  in  foaming  cascades  through  the 
narrow  openings  ;  the  weathered  stonework,  and  the 
curious  old  oil-lamps  ;  and  the  soaring  Monument 
with  the  fantastic  spire  of  St.  Magnus,  seen  from 
Southwark,  in  the  background.  This  was  the  aspect 
of  Old  London  Bridge  at  any  time  between  1750, 
when  the  houses  that  had  been  for  centuries  standing 
on  it  were  removed,  and  1831,  when  the  bridge  itself 


6 


THE   DOVER    ROAD 


was  destroyed  with  pick  and  shovel.  In  previous 
ages  there  were  gates  both  at  the  London  and  the 
Southwark    ends,    and    on    these    fortified    gateways 


^ouf^  GaTeiJj-. 


Old  Lon^n  "^r'l  (^e 


were  stuck  the  heads  of  many  traitors  to  the  State 
and  martyrs  to  reUgious  opinions.  The  heads  of 
Sir  Wilham  Wallace,  Jack  Cade,  Bishop)  Fisher  of 
Rochester,  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  of  many  another, 
were  once  to  be  seen  here  ;  and  in  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time,  when  John  Visschcr  made  a  drawing  of  London 


BRIDGE   FOOT  7 

Bridge,  so  maii}^  were  the  rotting  skulls  that  the 
SoutliAvark  gate-house  wore  not  so  much  the  appearance 
of  an  entry  into  the  capital  of  a  civilised  kingdom 
as  that  of  a  doorwa}^  to  some  Giant  Blunderbore's 
bloodstained  castle. 

"  Bridge  Foot  "   was  the  name  of  the  Southwark 


THE    "  OEOEGE.' 


end  of  London  Bridge.  It  was  a  narrow  lane  leading 
to  Southwark  High  Street,  paved  with  knobbly  stones 
and  walled  in  with  tall  houses.  Bridge  Foot  is  a  thing 
of  the  past,  and  London  Bridge  Station  stands  on  the 
site  of  it.  "  High  Street,  Borough,"  too,  is  very 
different  from  not  only  meditcval  days,  but  even 
from  coaching  times.  The  many  old  inns  that  used 
to   front   toward   the   street,    dating   their   prosperity 


8  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

back  to  the  twelfth  century,  and  their  fabric  to  some 
time  subsequently  to  the  fire  of  1676,  are  nearly  all 
either  utterly  demolished,  or  are  put  to  use  as  railway 
receiving  offices.  The  "Queen's  Head"  is  gone;  the 
"  George,"  most  interesting  of  all  that  remain  here, 
is  threatened  ;  the  "  Spur  "  is  left,  little  changed  ; 
the  "  Half  Moon  "  is  still  the  house  for  a  good  chop 
or  steak  and  a  tankard  of  ale  ;  but  the  "  White  Hart," 
where  is  it  ?  Where  the  "  Tabard,"  the  "  King's 
Head,"  the  "  Catherine  Wheel,"  the  "  Boar's  Head," 
the  "  Old  Pick  my  Toe,"  or  the  "  Three  Widows  "  ? 
In  vain  will  the  curious  who  pay  pilgrimage  to 
Southwark  seek  them.  There  still  are  many  cavernous 
doorways,  stone-flagged  passages,  and  great  court- 
yards ;  but  nothing  more  romantic  than  railway  vans 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  most  of  them,  and  the  yard  Avhere 
Sam  Weller  w^as  first  introduced  to  an  admiring  public 
is  quite  gone. 

The  most  romantically  named  of  the  Southwark 
inns  now  left  is  undoubtedly  the  "  Blue  Eyed  Maid," 
so  named,  possibly,  in  connection  with  Tamplin's 
"  Blue  Eyed  Maid  "  coach  that  used  to  run  between 
Southw^ark  and  Rochester  in  the  twenties.  The 
building,  though,  does  not  share  the  romanticism 
of  its  name.  Near  it,  let  into  the  seventeenth-century 
brick  frontage  of  No.  71,  High  Street,  is  the  old  sign 
of  the  "  Hare  and  Sun,"  the  trade-mark  of  Nicholas 
Hare  ;  and  this,  together  with  the  stone  half-moon 
sign  in  the  yard  of  the  "  Half  Moon  Inn,"  is  the  sole 
relic  of  the  many  devices  that  once  decorated  the  street. 
The  hop  trade  has  taken  almost  undivided  possession 
of  the  place  nowadays.  The  Hop  Exchange  is  over 
the  way,  and  hop-factors  are  as  frequently  to  be 
met  with  here  as  diamond-merchants  in  Hatton 
Garden  ;  and  with  their  coming  the  old-fashioned 
appearance  of  Southwark  High  Street  is  gone. 

Even  when  Hogarth  painted  his  "  Southwark  Fair," 
in  1733,  the  street  was  suburban,  and  in  the  distance, 
seen    betw^een    the    crowds    gathered    round    old    St. 


THE   TELEGRAPH   TOWER  9 

George's  Church,  are  the  hills  and  dales  of  Kent. 
The  church  was  pulled  down  in  the  following  year, 
and  the  present  building  put  up  in  its  place.  The 
fair  was  suppressed  in  1762. 

At  that  time,  Kent  Street  was  the  only  way  to 
the  Dover  Road,  and,  even  then,  the  dirt  and  over- 
crowding in  that  notorious  thoroughfare  were 
phenomenal.  Englishmen  were  ashamed  of  this 
disgraceful  entrance  into  London,  and  one  Avhose  duty 
lay  in  bringing  a  representative  foreigner  from  Dover 
to  London  craftily  contrived  that  he  should  enter  the 
Metropolis  at  night,  when  the  dirty  tenements  of 
Kent  Street,  by  which  their  carriage  would  pass, 
would  be  hidden  in  darkness.  When  Newington 
Causeway  was  made,  and  direct  access  gained  to  the 
Old  Kent  Road,  the  horrors  of  Kent  Street  were  no 
longer  to  be  braved  by  travellers.  The  street  is  here 
still,  but  somewhat  civilised,  and  now  called  "  Tabard 
Street  "  ;  but  to  "  give  a  bit  of  Kent  Street  "  is  yet 
understood  to  mean  language  for  which  Billingsgate 
has  also  been  long  renowned. 

A  singular  structure  standing  in  Tooley  Street,  and 
visible  for  a  very  great  distance  up  or  down  the  river, 
was  the  so-called  "  Telegraph  Tower,"  which  was 
burned  down  in  the  great  fire  of  August,  1843.  It  had 
at  one  time  been  a  shot-tower,  and  had  always  com- 
pletely dwarfed  its  next-door  neighbour,  St.  Olave's 
Church.  It  was  very  ugly,  and  so  its  loss  was  a 
distinct  gain  ;  but  with  its  disappearance  went  all 
recollection  of  the  old  system  of  signalling  that  had 
no  rival  before  the  electric  telegraph  was  introduced 
in  1838. 

This  system  was  introduced  in  1795,  at  the  suggestion 
of  the  Rev.  Lord  George  Murray,  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Saint  David's.  He  proposed  to  the  Admiralty  to 
erect  signal-posts  or  towers  on  the  heights  between 
London  and  the  coast,  and  upon  experiments  being 
made,  it  was  found  easily  practicable  to  send  messages 
in  this  way  to  our  ships  in  the  Downs.     That  year. 


10 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


then,  witnessed  the  estabhshment  of  a  hne  of  telegraph- 
towers  between  the  Admiralty  and  Deal,  with  a  brancli 


OLD  TELEGRAPH  TO  WEE,  TOOLE  Y  STREET. 

to    Sheerness,     The    original    apparatus    of   revolving 
shutters  was  in  use  until  1816,  when  it  was  changetl 


SOUTHWARK  11 

for  a.  semaphore  system,  resembling  very  closel}^  that 
in  use  upon  railways  at  the  present  day,  the  chief 
peculiarity  beino-  that,  instead  of  only  two  movements 
of  the  semaphore  arms,  each  one  could  be  made  to 
assume  six  different  positions.  Some  old  prints  of 
the  Admiralty  buildings  in  Whitehall  show  a  telegraph- 
station  of  this  kind  upon  the  roof,  with  the  little 
wooden  cabin  in  which  were  stationed  the  men 
(generally  four)  whose  duty  it  was  to  read  through 
telescopes  the  signals  from  the  nearest  station,  and  to 
work  the  shutters  or  semaphores  above  their  own. 
One  of  these  stations  has  given  the  name  of  "  Telegraph 
Hill  "  to  that  knoll  at  Hatcham,  by  New  Cross,  which 
was  opened  as  a  public  park  so  recently  as  April,  1895. 
From  hence  was  signalled  news  of  Nelson  and  Trafalgar, 
of  Wellington  and  Waterloo  ;  here  worked  the  arms 
that  carried  orders  from  the  Admiralty  to  the  admirals 
in  the  Downs  to  sail  east  or  west  ;  to  proceed  home  or 
fare  forth  to  foreign  stations  ;  to  summon  Courts 
Martial,  and  to  put  the  sentences  of  those  stern 
drum-head  tribunals  into  execution. 


IV 

The  Southwark  of  Chaucer's  time  was  a  very  different 
place.  For  one  thing,  it  was  a  great  deal  smaller. 
The  year  in  which  his  Canterbury  Pilgrims  were 
supposed  to  set  out  has  generally  been  fixed  at  1383, 
and  at  that  time  the  whole  country  had  only  recently 
been  smitten  with  three  great  pestilences,  which 
had  carried  off  nearly  half  the  population  of  England. 
London  numbered  probably  no  more  than  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants.  Southwark  was  comparatively 
a  village  ;  a  village,  too,  not  with  the  odious 
surroundings  of  later  years,  but  a  pleasant  spot  over 
the  water  from  the  City,  where  great  prelates  had 
their  palaces,  and  whence  a  short  walk  of  five  minutes 


12  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

or  so  would  bring  you  into  the  open  country,  and 
among  the  fragrant  hedgerows  of  the  Kent  Road. 
No  picture  exists  of  Southwark  as  Chaucer  saw  it, 
but  when  an  ingenious  Dutchman — one  Antony  van 
der  Wyngrerde — made  a  drawing  of  Southwark  and 
London  Bridge,  in  1546,  this  historic  part  of  the 
"  Surrey  side  "  was  still  distinctly  rural.  Orchards 
and  pleasant  gardens  are  seen  clustering  round 
St.  George's  Church,  and  stretching  away  to  the  site 
of  the  present  Kent  Street,  and  bosky  woods  flourished 
where  the  tall  wharves  of  Bankside  are  crowded 
together.  Where  are  those  orchards,  woods,  and 
gardens  now  ?  Where  is  Winchester  House,  the 
grand  palace  of  the  Bishops  of  Winchester,  that 
looked  upon  the  river  ?  Where  its  neighbour, 
Rochester  House  ?  Where,  too,  is  Suffolk  House,  the 
princely  residence  of  the  Dukes  of  Suffolk  ?  Gone, 
all  of  them,  like  the  morning  dew ;  and  the  only 
recognisable  object  in  Van  Wyngrerde's  drawing 
is  the  tower  of  St.  Mary  Overie's  Church  that  still, 
as  "  St.  Saviour's,"  rears  its  four  pinnacles  above  the 
Southwark  of  to-day. 

The  most  famous  of  all  the  inns  of  Southwark  was 
the  "  Tabard,"  famous  not  only  as  an  ordinary  house 
of  good  cheer,  but  as  a  hostelry  immediately  under 
the  protection  of  the  Church,  whereto  resorted  many 
good  folk  bent  on  pilgrimage.  The  Abbot  of  Hyde 
Monastery  at  Winchester  was  the  owner  of  the  ground 
upon  which  the  original  "  Tabard  "  was  built,  and  he 
built  here  not  only  an  inn  (which  it  is  to  be  supposed  he 
let  out)  but  also  a  guest-house  for  the  brethren  of  Hyde, 
and  all  others  of  the  clergy  who  resorted  to  London  to 
wait  on  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  whose  grand  palace 
stood  close  by.  In  1307  did  the  Abbot  of  Hyde  build 
the  "  Tabard,"  and  Chaucer  gave  it  immortality 
in  1383.  At  that  time  the  landlord  was  the  Harry 
Bailly  of  the  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  ;  a  real  person, 
probably  an  intimate  friend  of  Chaucer's,  and  Chaucer's 
description    of   him    is    most   likely   to    be    a   careful 


CHAUCER'S   PILGRIMS  13 

]3ortraiture  of  the  man,  his  appearance,  his  speech,  and 
his  ways  of  thought. 

He  was  a  considerable  person,  this  host.  He  was 
a  Member  of  Parhament,  and  his  name  is  an  index 
of  his  importance,  for  Baihff  of  Southwark  his  ancestor, 
Henry  Tite,  or  Martin,  had  been  made  in  1231,  and 
himself  held  the  position  through  so  long  a  line  of 
grandfathers  and  great-grandfathers  that  their  name 
had  become  merged  in  that  of  his  civic  office.  So 
Chaucer's  description  we  know  to  be  very  truth,  so 
far  as  his  worth  and  position  are  concerned  : — 

A  seemly  man  uur  hoste  was  withal 

For  to  have  been  a  marshal  in  a  hall. 

A  large  man  was  he,  with  eyen  steep, 

A  fairer  burgess  is  there  none  in  Chepe  ; 

Bold  of  his  speech,  and  wise,  and  well  ytaught ; 

And  of  manhood  lacked  righte  nought, 

Eke  thereto  he  was  right  a  merry  man. 

This  explains  the  host's  sitting  at  supper  with  his 
guests,  even  with  such  gentlefolk  as  the  knight  and 
his  son,  the  squire,  and  with  the  Lady  Abbess.  Thus 
is  he  able  to  take  charge  of  and  assume  leadership 
over  his  party  on  the  road  to  Canterbury,  and  to 
reprove  or  praise  each  and  all,  according  to  his  mind. 

The  "  Tabard  "  is,  of  course,  only  a  memory  now, 
and,  indeed,  so  often  had  it  been  patched  and  repaired, 
that  but  little  of  the  original  could  have  been  standing 
when  the  great  fire  of  Southwark,  in  1676,  swept 
away  many  of  the  old  inns.  But  the  ""  Talbot,"  as  it 
was  called  in  later  times,  stood  until  1870  on  the 
site  of  the  older  building,  and  was  itself  so  venerable 
that  many  good  folks  were  used  to  believe  it  to  have 
been  the  veritable  house  where  those  old-time  pilgrims 
lay  before  setting  out  on  their  journey. 

To  that  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  crowds  of  pilgrims 
flocked  from  every  part  of  the  Christian  world.  Rich 
and  poor,  high  and  low  alike,  left  court  and  camp, 
palace  or  hovel.  The  knight  left  his  castle,  the  lady 
her  bower  ;  the  merchant  his  goods,  the  sailor  his 
ship  ;  and  the  ploughman  forsook  his  tillage  to  partake 


U  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

in  the  blessings  that  radiated  from  Becket's  resting- 
place  in  Canterbury  Cathedral.  From  such  varied 
ranks  of  society  are  Chaucer's  pilgrims  drawn.  A  knight 
whose  manhood  had  been  spent  in  battle  at  home  or  in 
Palestine  is  at  their  head.  He  had  been  present  at  the 
taking  of  Alexandria  ;  had  fought  with  the  Germans 
against  Russia,  and  had  campaigned  in  Granada 
against  the  Moors.  Yet  his  is  a  meek  and  Christian-like 
deportment,  and  he  is  in  truth  a  very  perfect,  gentle 
knight.  With  him  is  his  son,  the  squire,  a  boy  of 
twenty,  who  had  already  made  one  campaign  against 
the  French,  and  had  borne  himself  well,  both  in  battle 
and  in  the  tourney.  Love  deprives  him  of  his  sleep, 
and  for  love  he  writes  sonnets  and  attires  himself  in 
smart  clothes,  broidered  over  with  flowers  like  a  May 
meadow.  In  attendance  on  this  love-lorn  swain  is  a 
yeoman  clad  in  Lincoln  green  and  bristling  with  arms. 
Sword  and  buckler,  a  dagger  in  his  belt,  with  bow  and 
arrows  complete  his  equipment.  Following  upon 
these  comes  firstly  Madame  Eglantine,  a  lady  prioress 
whose  noble  birth  is  seen  both  in  her  appearance  and 
in  the  nicety  with  which  she  eats  and  drinks.  With  a 
sweet,  if  rather  nasal,  tone  she  chants  portions  of  the 
Liturgy,  and  speaks  French  by  preference  ;  but  it  is 
the  French,  not  of  Paris,  but  of  "  Stratford-atte-Bow." 
So  high-strung  is  her  sensibility  that  she  would  weep 
if  she  was  shown  a  mouse  in  a  trap,  or  if  her  little  dog 
was  beaten  with  a  stick.  She  wears — somewhat 
inconsistently,  considering  her  religious  profession — a 
brooch  bearing  the  inscription.  Amor  vincit  omnia. 

Next  this  dainty  lady  comes  a  fat  monk  of  the 
Benedictine  Order,  whose  shaven  crown  and  red 
cheeks  are  as  smooth  as  glass,  and  whose  eyes  shine 
like  burning  coals,  both  by  reason  of  lust  and  good 
living.  He  is  dressed  in  a  fashion  no  holy  monk 
should  affect,  for  the  sleeves  of  his  robe  are  trimmed 
with  the  finest  fur,  and  a  golden  love-knot  pin  holds 
his  hood  in  place.  Clearly  ring  the  bells  on  his  horse's 
bridle  ;    hare-hunting  and  a  feast  off  a  fat  swan  are 


THE  "sruii"  I.XX. 


CHAUCER'S   PILGRIMS  17 

more  to  him  than  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  and  all  the 
holy  books  in  his  cell.  Beside  this  disgrace  to  his 
religious  23rofession  is  a  mendicant  friar  who  is  no  whit 
better  than  his  fellow,  for  he  can  sing  tender  songs  to 
his  harp,  treats  the  country-folk  in  the  taverns,  and 
knows  well  how  to  please  the  women  with  timely  gifts 
of  needles  and  knives.  Follow  these  a  merchant  and 
two  learned  men.  Well  does  the  merchant  know  the 
rate  of  exchange,  and  better  still  does  he  know  how  to 
secure  his  own  interest.  Not  so  the  clerk  of  Oxenford, 
hollow-cheeked  and  lean,  dressed  in  threadbare  clothes 
and  riding  a  bare-ribbed  horse.  As  yet  he  is  unbeneficed; 
but  his  books  are  his  only  joy.  His  fellow  is  a  law 
Serjeant  in  good  practice,  and  at  his  heels  comes  the 
Franklin,  a  representative  of  a  very  large  class  who  held 
land  of  their  own,  but  were  not  of  gentle  birth. 

A  lower  social  stratum  is  represented  by  a  haber- 
dasher, a  carpenter,  a  weaver,  a  dj^er,  and  a  tapster  ; 
all  of  consideration  in  their  own  grade,  and  likely 
to  become  aldermen  some  day.  As  Avealthy  as  any 
is  the  miller,  a  big-bodied  fellow,  with  a  spade  beard, 
red,  like  a  fox,  and  as  cunning.  He  well  knows  how 
to  take  a  share  of  the  corn  his  customers  bring  him  to 
grind.  He  wears  a  white  coat  and  a  blue  hood  ; 
plays  on  the  bagpipes,  and  tells  stories  fitted  to  make 
the  young  and  innocent  blush.  The  wife  of  Bath 
is  every  whit  as  indelicate.  She  has  been  married  five 
times,  and  of  love,  says  Chaucer,  "  she  knew  the  olde 
dance."  Therefore  she  is  privileged.  A  shipman 
from  Dartmouth  has  with  him  a  bottle  of  Burgundy 
stolen  from  his  captain's  cabin,  from  which  he  thinks 
it  no  sin  to  drink  when  on  pious  pilgrimage.  A  doctor 
of  physic,  a  cook,  a  poor  parson,  a  ploughman,  a  reeve, 
or  estate  agent,  a  manciple,  and  two  disgraceful 
characters — a  summoner  and  a  pardoner — make  up 
the  total  of  the  company.  The  summoner  has  a  fiery 
face,  which  nothing  but  abstinence  from  drink  will 
assuage  ;  and  the  pardoner  is  totally  without  conscience 
or  morals  of  any  kind.     He  makes  a  good  living  by 


18  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

selling  pardons  from  the  Pope,  and  gets  more  by  the 
sale  of  relics  in  one  day  than  the  parson  can  earn  in 
two  months. 

When  these  pilgrims  rode  forth  on  that  April 
morning — nine  and  twenty  of  them — from  the 
"  Tabard,"  to  seek  Becket's  shrine,  they  started  from 
the  ultimate  suburb  of  London.  Picture  that, 
Londoners  of  to-day,  who  find  streets  unceasing  until 
Blackheath  is  gained,  and  no  true  roadside  country 
this  side  of  Gravesend  !  The  thymy  air  then  blew  in 
at  the  casements  of  the  many  inns  of  Southwark,  and 
the  views  thence  extended  over  fields  and  meadows 
where  countless  chimneys  now  pollute  the  sky.  Some 
way  down  the  Kent  Road  ran  a  little  stream  across  the 
highway — "  Saint  Thomas  a  Watering  "  the  ford  was 
called,  and  here  the  pilgrims  made  their  first  halt — 

And  forth  we  riden  a  litel  more  than  pas, 
Unto  the  watering  of  Saint  Thomas, 
And  then  our  host  began  his  hors  arrest. 

Saint  Thomas's  Road  marks  the  site  of  this  stream,  and 
the  "  Thomas  a  Becket  "  inn  perpetuates  a  house  of  call 
for  w^ayfarers  ;  but  the  fame  of  all  these  things — of 
the  heretics,  the  cutpurses,  the  varied  thieves  and 
beggars  who  were  executed  here,  with  their  quarters 
stuck  on  poles  by  the  ford  by  way  of  warning,  is  lost  in 
the  latter-day  commonplace  of  the  Old  Kent  Road. 

Yet,  at  this  place,  which  was  something  more  than  a 
mere  water-splash,  and  the  Golgotha  of  this  road  out  of 
London,  many  met  their  end  through  being  born  a 
little  in  advance  of  their  time.  This  was,  and  is  yet, 
a  criminal  offence  ;  but  it  is  no  longer  capital.  If,  for 
example,  the  unfortunate  John  Penry,  AVelsh  scholar 
and  graduate  alike  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  religious 
reformer  and  prime  mover  in  the  "  Martin  Marprelate  " 
tracts,  directed  against  the  Episcopal  bench,  had  but 
been  born  fifty  years  later,  he  would  have  been 
honoured,  instead  of  meeting  here  an  ignominious  end. 
He  was  hanged  at  St.  Thomas  a  Watering,  May  29, 1593, 


MILESTONES  19 

and  was  a  victim  to  the  vengeance  of  my  lords  spiritual 
in  general,  and  of  Archbishop  Whitgift  in  particular. 


There  are  milestones  on  the  Dover  Road.  Of  course. 
Mr.  F's  aunt,  in  Little  Dorr  it,  kncAV  something  about 
them,  but  not  much.  Her  knoAvledge  was  general,  not 
particular.     We  read  in  Chapter  XXIII  : — 

"  A  diversion  was  occasioned  here  by  Mr.  F.'s  aunt, 
making  the  following  inexorable  and  awful  statement  : 
'  There's  milestones  on  the  Dover  Road.'  Clennam 
was  disconcerted  by  this.  '  Let  him  deny  it  if  he  can,' 
continued  the  venomous  old  lady.  He  could  not  deny 
it.     There  are  milestones  on  the  Dover  Road." 

We  will  not  grow  excited  about  this  incontrovertible 
fact.  But  not  many  people  can  say  where  the  first 
milestone  from  London  on  this  highway  is  to  be  found. 
Although,  in  fact,  it  is  at  the  end  of  the  first  mile  from 
the  south  side  of  London  Bridge,  no  one  in  these  days 
would  suspect  such  a  relic  of  surviving  in  London 
streets.  It  stands  where  the  Old  Kent  Road  begins,  on 
the  left-hand  side  as  you  go  south,  with  an  iron  plate 
on  it,  proclaiming  this  to  be  "1  mile  from  London 
Bridge."  The  stone,  greatly  battered,  stands  pro- 
minently, on  an  elevated  kerb.  Just  because  we 
associate  milestones  with  country  roads  and  hedgerows, 
we  look  upon  this,  standing  in  that  crowded  urban 
region,  as  curious  ;  but  when  it  was  first  set  up,  this 
was  on  the  very  verge  of  the  country. 

We  have  heard  much  of  the  Old  Kent  Road  in  recent 
years.  People  who  never  so  much  as  suspected  the 
existence  of  it,  grew  familiar  with  its  name,  in  the 
refrain  of  a  comic  song  dealing  with  costermongers. 
The  music-halls  in  1891  reverberated  with  the  name. 


20  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

But  that  is  all  done  with.  The  Old  Kent  Road  is  not 
to  be  described  in  a  phrase,  nor  thought  of  as  the 
coster's  paradise.     It  is  in  fact  a  road  of  many  aspects. 

But  how  to  catalogue  the  kinds  of  them  that  dwell 
here  ?  It  cannot  well  be  done.  Shopkeepers  of  every 
kind  and  degree  ;  private  residents  of  a  more  than 
average  decent  respectability  ;  publicans,  the  landlords 
of  public-houses  of  a  prodigious  bigness  ;  family 
doctors — these  are  the  more  salient  classes  of  the 
Old  Kent  Road.  The  coster  ?  you  ask.  Nay,  but  he 
does  not  "  inhabit  "  here.  He  (shall  I  phrase  it  thus  ?) 
pervades  the  road — the  "  road,"  bien  entendu,  not  the 
houses  that  line  the  road — and  it  is  only  on  Saturday 
nights,  when  frugal  housewives  fare  forth,  cheapening 
necessary  provisions,  that  you  who  seek  shall  find  him, 
with  his  booths  and  shallows,  his  barrows  and  crazy 
trestles  ;  his  naphtha-lamps  flaring  gustily,  his  voice 
raucous,  his  goods  striking  both  eye  and  nose  in  no 
uncertain  manner.  At  such  times  the  kennel  becomes 
a  busy  mart,  where  you  may  purchase  most  articles  of 
daily  food  at  a  price  much  below  the  current  quotations 
in  shops.  Here  a  shilling  possesses  the  purchasing 
power  of  a  half-crown  expended  in  the  West  End,  and 
at  this  bon  marche  the  artisan's  table  is  fully  furnished 
forth  for  a  sum  which  would  give  the  dwellers  in 
mid-London  pause. 

I  have  said  that  the  Old  Kent  Road  is  eminently 
respectable  ;  and  so  it  is.  But  it  is  also  (the  natural 
sequence  of  respectability)  not  less  eminently  dull. 
It  is  only  when  Saturday  evening  comes,  with  its  street- 
market  commencing  as  the  light  dies  out  of  the  sky, 
that  this  long  road  becomes  rea'ly  interesting.  Then  it 
takes  on  an  aspect  of  mystery,  and  is  filled  with 
flickering  lights  and  shadows  from  the  yellow  gas-lamps 
and  the  gusty  naphtha-flares  that  illuminate  the 
dealings  of  Mr.  'Enery  'AAvkins  with  his  clients  ; 
and  I  am  quite  sure  that,  if  Rembrandt  was  living  now, 
he  would  choose  such  a  time  and  place  as  the  best 
subject   for   a   picture   in   all   London.     One   spot   in 


IN  THE   OLD   KENT   ROAD  21 

especial  he  would  select.  Taking  a  tramcar  from  the 
"  Elephant  and  Castle,"  he  would  ask  the  conductor 
to  set  him  down  by  the  bridge  that  crosses  the  Grand 
Surrey  Canal,  where  the  great  gasometers  of  the 
South  London  Gas  Company  rear  themselves  high  in 


-      ■   "    r 

m^' 

1    '''*'^ 

■          ,^           s^. 

dm 

i 

^    1 

■ 

i 

m 

■ 

p 

SATURDAY    XIGHT    IX    THE    OLD    KEXT    ROAD. 

air  above  mean  houses  and  third-rate  shops.  Arrived 
here,  he  would  select,  as  the  best  j^oint  of  view,  the 
broad  entrance  of  a  large  public-house,  outside  of 
which  the  omnibuses  stop  in  their  career  between  the 
Borough  and  New  Cross  ;  and  it  is  very  likely  that 
the  thing  which  happened  to  me  while  sketching  here 
would  also  befall  him  ;  that  is  to  say,  some  short-sighted 
or  dull-witted  old  lady  would  probably  dig  him  in  the 
ribs  with  the  ferrule  of  her  umbrella,  and  say,  "  Young 


22  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

man,  how  long  before  your  'bus  starts  ?  "  And,  after 
all,  I  suppose  one  must  not  be  satirical  at  the  expense 
of  that  very  worthy  person  the  British  matron  ;  for, 
to  a  superficial  glance,  a  sketch-block  may  be  not 
unlike  an  omnibus  way-bill  ;  and  who  but  a  mad 
impressionist  would  see  sketchable  material  in  an  ugly 
gasometer  ?  And  who  other  than  a  reckless  Bohemian 
would  be  so  far  indifferent  to  public  opinion  as  to  sketch 
outside  a  gin-palace  ? 

The  Old  Kent  Road  of  from  seventy  to  eighty 
years  ago  presented  a  very  different  aspect  from  that 
with  which  those  are  familiar  who  travel  nowadays 
up  and  down  its  great  length  in  tramcars.  It  was 
distinctly  rural.  The  few  houses  that  were  to  be 
seen  here  in  coaching  days  were  chiefly  inns,  with 
swinging  signs  creaking,  and  horse-troughs  lining  the 
roadside,  and  the  "  Kentish  Drovers,"  that  now  wears 
much  the  same  appearance  as  any  other  London  public- 
house,  was  a  veritable  rustic  house  of  call  for  country- 
men driving  their  sheep  and  cattle  to  London  markets. 
"  The  Bricklayers'  Arms  "  (a  'scutcheon,  needless  to 
say,  unknown  to  heraldry),  "  The  World  Turned 
Upside  Down,"  the  "  Thomas  a  Becket,"  and  the 
"  Golden  Cross,"  at  New  Cross,  were  scarcely  less 
rural.  It  was  at  the  "  Golden  Cross  "  that  Pitt  and 
Dundas,  overtaken  on  the  road  from  Dover  to  London 
by  bad  weather,  put  up  for  the  night,  and  drank  seven 
bottles  of  port  before  they  went  to  bed. 

Imagine,  though,  the  condition  of  the  roads,  and 
locomotion  upon  them,  when  two  Cabinet  Ministers 
could  think  it  not  only  convenient,  but  merely  prudent, 
to  halt  for  the  night  when  so  near  London  as  New 
Cross  !  The  Londoner  who  can  take  'bus,  tram,  or 
train,  and  reach  the  City  in  less  than  half-an-hour, 
can  scarce  picture  the  necessity  which  faced  those 
distinguished  travellers. 


DEPTFORD  23 


VI 

When  the  old  coachmen  had  got  through  New  Cross 
Gate,  which  stood  where  the  "  ^larquis  of  Granby  " 
occupies  the  junction  of  the  Deptford  and  Lewisham 
roads,  they  found  themselves  in  the  country,  with 
Deptford,  a  busy  but  small  and  compact  place,  yet 
some  distance  ahead.  Also,  they  had  entered  the 
county  of  Kent.  Nowadays,  it  is  difficult  for  the 
uninstructed  to  tell  where  New  Cross  ends  or  Deptford 
begins,  for  there  is  never  a  break  in  the  houses  all  the 
way,  while  the  street  presents  no  attractions  whatever  ; 
and  even  though  the  "  good  view  of  part  of  the 
Greenwich  Railway,  the  carriages  of  which  may  be 
seen  in  motion  to  and  fro  "  (a  view  which  the  local 
guide-book,  published  in  1837,  considered  worthy  a 
visit  from  London),  remains  to  this  day,  together 
with  several  other  railways  to  keep  it  company,  one 
does  not  find  crowds  of  visitors  hanging  on  the  delirious 
delights  of  the  several  New  Cross  stations. 

The  Deptford  of  to-day  is  no  place  for  the  pilgrim. 
Instead  of  reminiscences  of  Kenilworth  and  Queen 
Elizabeth,  of  Drake  and  Peter  the  Great,  it  is  rich 
in  "  stores  "  and  "  emporiums."  A  workhouse  stands 
where  Sayes  Court  afforded  shelter  under  its  roof, 
and  amusement  in  its  gardens,  for  the  Czar ;  the 
Trinity  House  of  Deptford  Strond  has  been  removed 
to  Tower  Hill  ;  and  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
thing  in  modern  Deptford  is  the  Foreign  Cattle  Market. 
And  yet  here  Elizabeth  knighted  Francis  Drake, 
in  1581,  on  that  good  ship  the  Golden  Hind,  in  which 
he  had  ''  compassed  the  world  "  ;  and  here,  on  a  site 
now  occupied  by  cattle  and  by  business  premises,  was 
the  greatest  dockyard  in  England  at  the  most  inter- 
esting period  of  English  naval  history. 

It  was  at  Deptford,  they  say,  in  1593,  that 
Christopher  Marlowe,  that  bright  particular  star  of 
poesy,  was  slain,  while  yet  in  his  thirtieth  year.     AVe 


24  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

know  too  little  of  him,  and  no  portraiture  has  come 
down  to  show  us  what  manner  of  man  this  was  who 
wrote  divinely  and  lived  (if  we  may  believe  the  scribes) 
sottishly,  after  the  manner,  indeed,  of  the  fraternity 
of  his  fellow-dramatists.  It  should  seem,  by  some 
contemporary  accounts,  that  he  was  killed  by  a  rival 
in  the  affections  of  some  saucy  baggage  ;  but  there 
were  not  wanting  those  who  asserted  that  the  poet 
was  assassinated  by  some  myrmidon  of  the  Church, 
whose  priests  he  lost  no  opportunity  of  reviling.  To 
lend  some  colour  to  this,  there  remains  a  pamphlet, 
printed  in  1618,  entitled — what  a  title  ! — "  The 
Thunderbolt  of  God's  Wrath  Against  Hard-hearted 
and  Stiff-necked  Sinners."  It  says,  "  We  read  of  one 
Marlowe,  a  Cambridge  Scholler,  who  was  a  poet  and 
a  filthy  play-maker ;  this  wretch  accounted  that 
meeke  servant  of  God,  Moses,  to  be  but  a  conjuror, 
and  our  Sweet  Saviour  to  be  but  a  seducer  and  deceiver 
of  the  people.  But  harken,  ye  brain-sicke  and 
prophane  poets  and  players,  that  bewitch  idle  cares 
with  foolish  vanities,  what  fell  upon  this  prophane 
wretch  ;  having  a  quarrell  against  one  whom  he  met 
in  the  street  in  London,  and  would  have  stab'd  him  ; 
but  the  partie  perceiving  his  villany  prevented  him 
with  catching  his  hands,  and  turning  his  own  dagger 
into  his  braines ;  and  so  blaspheming  and  cursing  he 
yeelded  up  his  stinking  breath.  Marke  this,  ye 
players  that  live  by  making  fools  laugh  at  sinne  and 
wickedness." 


VII 

Leaving  "  dirty  Deptford,"  that  being  the  contu- 
melious conjuction  by  which  the  place  has  generally 
been  known,  any  time  these  last  hundred  years  or  so 
(and  far  be  it  from  me  to  deprive  any  place  of  its 
well-merited  title,  whether  good  or  ill),  the  road 
ascends    steeply   to   Blackheath,    past   some   fine    old 


BLACKHEATH  25 

mansions  which,  having  been  built  in  the  days  of 
Queen  Anne  and  the  earher  Georges,  and  having  long 
housed  the  aristocracy  who  at  one  time  frequented 
the  place,  became  afterwards  the  homes  of  rich  City 
merchants.  Finally,  when  the  "  schools  for  young 
ladies  "  are  gone  which  now  occupy  them,  and  give 
so  distinct  a  scholastic  air  to  this  suburb,  they  will 
doubtless  disappear  amid  a  cloud  of  dust  and  the 
clinking  of  trowels,  while  on  their  sites  will  rise  the 
unchanging  pattern  of  suburban  shops  ! 

Blackheath  is  one  of  the  finest  suburbs  of  London  ; 
a  town  girt  round  with  many  particularly  beautiful 
outskirts.  Strange  to  say,  it  has  not  been  spoiled, 
and  though  thickly  surrounded  with  hovises,  remains 
as  breezy  and  healthful  as  ever  ;  perhaps,  indeed,  since 
highwayman  and  footpad  have  disappeared,  and  now 
that  duels  are  unknown,  Blackheath  may  be  regarded 
as  even  more  healthy  a  spot  than  it  was  a  hundred 
years  ago. 

The  air  which  gave  Bleak  Heath  its  original  name, 
and  nipped  the  ears  and  made  red  the  noses  of  the 
"  outsides  "  who  journeyed  across  it  on  their  way  to 
Dover  in  the  winter  months,  is  healthful  and  bracing, 
and  is  not  so  bleak  as  balmy  in  the  days  of  June, 
when  the  sun  shines  brilliantly,  and  makes  a  generous 
heat  to  radiate  from  the  old  mellow  brick  wall  of 
Greenwich  Park  that  skirts  the  heath  on  its  northern 
side.  Outside  the  gate  of  that  steepest  of  all  parks 
stood  Montagu  House,  whence  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield 
wrote  those  famous  letters  to  his  son — letters  whose 
precepts,  if  carefully  and  consistently  followed,  would 
have  infallibly  sent  their  recipient  to  the  Devil. 
Montagu  House  is  gone  now,  pulled  down  long  ago, 
and  the  site  where  the  worldly  Dormer  wrote,  pointing 
out  to  his  son  the  way  to  perdition,  is  now  a  part 
of  the  Heath.  Gone,  too,  is  the  garden  where  the 
phenomenally  vulgar  and  undignified  Princess  Caroline 
of  Wales,  who  lived  here  from  1797  to  1814,  might 
have  been  seen,  and  ivas  seen  one  morning,  sitting  in 


26 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


the  grounds  in  a  gorgeous  dress,  looped  up  to  the 
knees,  to  show  the  stars  with  which  her  petticoats 
were  spangled  :  with  silver  wings  on  her  shoulders, 
and  drinking  from  a  peAvter  pot  of  porter,  after  the 
use  and  wont,  between  the  acts,  of  the  pantomime 
fairies  of  Drury  Lane. 

With  this  Princesse  au  cafe  chantant  disappears 
the  last  vestige  of  royalty  hereabouts,  and  Greenwich, 
lying  down  beyond  the  Park,  has  only  dim  memories 
of  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  was 
born  in  the  palace  of  Placentia  beside  the  Thames. 


GREEXWICH   OBSERVATOrvY 


If  you  venture  into  the  Park,  and  stand  upon 
Observatory  Hill,  you  can  at  once  glimpse  London  and 
gain  an  idea  of  how  plebeian  Greenwich  has  become. 
But  its  history  is  not  yet  done,  and  on  this  ver}^  spot, 
in  1893,  a  chapter  of  it  was  made  by  a  foreign  Anarchist 
who  blew  himself  up  in  the  making  ;  and  when  the 
park  keepers  came  and  gleaned  little  pieces  of  him  from 


ON   THE   HEATH  27 

the  November  boughs,  the  incident  shaped  more 
picturesquely  than  any  other  happening  on  this  spot 
that  I  can  think  of. 

As  for  Blackhcath,  it  seems  that  when,  in  older 
days,  people  had  assignations  on  the  Dover  Road,  they 
generally  selected  this  place  for  the  purpose  ;  whether 
they  were  kings  and  emperors  that  met  ;  or  ambas- 
sadors, archbishops,  rebels,  or  rival  pretenders  to  the 
crown,  they  each  and  all  came  here  to  shake  hands 
and  interchange  courtesies,  or  to  speak  with  their 
enemies  in  the  gate.  It  is  very  impressive  to  find 
Blackhcath  thus  and  so  frequently  honoured  by  the 
great  ones  of  the  earth  ;  but  it  is  also  not  a  little 
embarrassing  to  the  historian  who  wants  to  be  getting 
along  down  the  road,  and  j^et  desires  to  tell  of  all  the 
pageants  that  here  befell,  and  how  the  high  contending 
parties  variously  saluted  or  sliced  one  another,  as  the 
case  might  be.  Indeed,  to  write  the  history  of  Black- 
heath  would  be  to  despair  of  ever  seeing  JDover,  and 
so,  instead  of  beginning  with  Aulus  Plautius,  or  any  of 
the  masterful  Roman  generals  who  doubtless  had 
something  to  say  to  those  cerulean  Britons  on  this 
spot,  I  will  skip  the  centuries,  and  only  note  the  more 
outstanding  and  interesting  occasions  on  which  the 
heath  has  figured  largely.  Hie  we  then  from  the  first 
to  the  fourteenth  century,  when,  in  1381,  Wat,  the 
Tiler  of  Dartford,  encamped  here  as  leader  of  a  hundred 
thousand  insurgents.  The  fount  and  origin  of  this 
famous  rebellion  has  ever  been  popularly  sought  in  the 
historic  incident  of  Dartford,  in  which  the  tax- 
gatherer  lost  his  life  ;  but  a  discontent  had  long 
been  smouldering  among  the  people,  which  needed 
only  an  eloquent  happening  of  this  nature  to  be 
fanned  into  a  flame.  The  Poll  Tax  was  one  of  the 
greatest  grievances  of  the  time,  and  the  high  rent 
of  land  was  even  more  burdensome.  The  price  of 
land  might,  perhaps,  have  been  borne  with,  for  it 
was  of  gradual  growth,  and  regulated  more  or  less 
by  the  law  of  su))i)]y  and  demand,  but  the  Poll  Tax 


28  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

was  a  new  burden,  and  one  exacted  harshly  from  the 
people  by  the  nobles  among  whom  the  Government 
had  farmed  it.  Then,  too,  the  state  of  serfdom  in 
which  the  villeins  existed  was  odious  to  them  at 
this  lapse  of  time,  when  men  began  to  aspire  to  some- 
thing better  than  to  be  the  mere  pawns  of  kings 
and  nobles,  sent  to  fight  for  feudalism  on  foreign 
battlefields,  or  in  fratricidal  conflicts  at  home.  The 
days  were  drawing  to  a  close  when  it  was  possible 
for  kings  to  issue  prescriptions  for  the  seizing  of 
artisans  to  be  set  to  work  on  the  building  of  royal 
palaces  and  castles  ;  documents  couched  in  this  wise  : 
''  To  our  trusty  and  well-beloved  Richard,  Earl  of 
Essex  :  Know  ye  that  it  is  our  pleasure  that  you  do 
take  and  seize  as  many  masons,  carpenters,  braziers, 
and  all  kinds  of  artificers  necessary  to  the  reparation 
of  our  Castle  of  Windsor,  and  that  this  shall  be  your 
warrant  for  detaining  them  so  long  as  may  be  necessary 
to  the  completion  of  the  work." 

With  grievances  old  and  new,  it  wanted  but  little 
to  set  the  home  counties  in  revolt,  and  so  we  find 
the  cause  of  the  Dartford  tiler  to  have  been  Avarml}^ 
taken  up,  not  only  throughout  his  native  Kent, 
but  also,  across  the  river,  in  Essex.  The  tiler's 
neighbours  swore  they  would  protect  him  from 
punishment,  and,  marching  to  Maidstone,  appointed 
him  leader  of  the  commons  in  Kent.  The  Canterbury 
citizens,  less  enthusiastic,  were  overawed  by  the 
number  of  the  rebels,  and  several  of  them  slain  ;  five 
hundred  joining  in  the  march  to  London,  while  a 
dissolute  itinerant  priest,  that  famous  demagogue 
John  Ball,  was  enlarged  from  prison  and  appointed 
preacher  to  the  throng,  rousing  them  to  iury  by  the 
rough  eloquence  and  apt  illustration  with  which  he 
enlarged  upon  his  text — 

When  Adam  delved,  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ? 

From    Blackheath   to   London    marched   this   great 


REBELS  29 

rabble.  The  king,  with  his  cousin  Henry,  Earl  of 
Derby  ;  the  xlrchbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  a  hundred 
knights  and  sergeants  were  retired  for  safety  to  the 
Tower,  whence  they  issued  by  boat  to  receive  the 
petitions  of  the  insurgents.  Ten  thousand  of  them 
waited  at  Rotherhithe,  and  by  their  fierce  yells  and 
threatening  appearance  so  terrified  the  king's  attend- 
ants that,  instead  of  permitting  him  to  land,  they  took 
advantage  of  the  tide,  and  returned.  This  behaviour 
disappointed  Tyler,  who  saw  no  hope  of  concessions 
from  the  king's  advisers.  He  and  his  men  burst  into 
London,  and,  joined  by  the  discontented  host  from 
Essex  and  Hertfordshire,  under  the  leadership  of  one 
John  Rakestraw  (who  has  come  down  to  us  through  the 
ages  as  Jack  Straw,  and  whose  camping-ground  on 
Hampstead  Heath  bears  to  this  da}^  the  old  inn  known 
as  "  Jack  Straw's  Castle  "),  plundered  the  town, 
burning  the  Palace  of  the  Savoy  and  all  the  buildings 
and  records  of  the  Temple.  Fear  eventually  led  the 
Court  party  to  grant  the  four  chief  demands  of  the 
people  ;  the  abolition  of  slavery  ;  the  reduction  of  the 
rent  of  land  to  fourpence  an  acre  ;  free  liberty  of  buying 
and  selling  in  all  fairs  and  markets  ;  and  a  general 
pardon  for  past  offences.  Had  Tyler  and  Rakestraw 
been  content  with  these  concessions,  it  is  probable 
that  all  would  have  been  well  ;  but  their  ambition 
had  grown  with  success,  and  they  trusted  to  further 
violence  for  greater  advantage.  Rushing  into  the 
Tower  at  the  head  of  four  hundred  men,  they  murdered 
there  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  five  others, 
and,  retaining  no  less  than  twenty  thousand  followers 
in  the  City,  intercepted  the  king  as  he  rode  out  the 
following  morning  attended  onl}^  by  sixty  horsemen. 
With  boorish  insolence,  Tyler  lay  hold  of  the  king's 
bridle,  when  AValworth,  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
stabbed  him  in  the  throat.  Falling  from  his  horse, 
the  rebel  leader  was  despatched  by  an  esquire.  The 
courage  and  tact  of  the  young  king  are  historical, 
and  the  way  in  which  he  quelled  the  hostility  of  the 


30  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

insurgents,  and  drew  their  sympathies  to  himself,  is 
well  known  ;  but  the  revocation  of  the  charters  of 
emancipation  was  a  piece  of  faithlessness  Avhich 
makes  the  inquirer  doubtful  of  the  sincerity  in  which 
they  were  first  granted,  and  the  less  inclined  to  blame 
Wat  the  Tiler  for  his  excesses. 

Thus  tamely  ended  this,  at  one  time,  most  formidable 
rebellion.  The  south  gateway  of  London  Bridge 
received  its  leader's  head,  ancl  the  lieges  who  fared 
by  that  frowning  archway,  together  with  those  others 
who  felt  no  loyalty,  were  invited  to  look  upon  the 
head  of  a  traitor.  But  some  day  Wat  the  Tiler  of 
Dartford  will  have  his  monument,  and,  truly,  there 
are  few  figures  in  our  history  that  so  well  deserve 
one,  for  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  stir  a  hand  for  the 
English  people  against  the  exactions  of  a  largely  alien 
nobility. 

Blackheath  Avitnessed  no  other  Avarlike  gathering 
for  the  matter  of  seventy  years  ;  but  it  was  in  the 
meanwhile  the  scene  of  many  peaceful  displays. 


VIII 

And  here  (says  Stowe)  came,  in  1415,  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  Aldermen  of  London,  with  four  hundred 
citizens  in  scarlet,  and  with  white  and  red  hoods,  to 
receive  Henry  the  Fifth  on  his  return  from  the  victories 
in  France,  of  which  that  of  Agincourt  was  the  greatest. 
"  The  gates  and  streets  of  the  City  were  garnished 
and  apparelled  with  precious  cloths  of  arras,  containing 
the  history,  triumphs,  and  princely  acts  of  the  kings  of 
England,  his  progenitors,  which  was  done  to  the  end 
that  the  king  might  understand  what  remembrance  the 
people  would  hand  to  their  posterity  of  these  his  great 
victories  and  triumphs.  The  conduits  in  the  City  ran 
none  other  but  goocl  sweet  wines,  and  that  abundantly. 
There  were  also  made  in  the  streets  many  towers  and 
stages,  richly  adorned,  and  on  the  height  of  them  sat 


CARDINAL   WOLSEY  31 

small  children,  apparelled  in  semblance  of  angels,  with 
sweet-tuned  voices,  singing  praises  and  lauds  unto  God  : 
for  the  victorious  king  would  not  suffer  ditties  to  be 
made  and  sung  of  his  history,  for  that  he  would  wholly 
have  the  praise  given  unto  God  ;  neither  would  he 
suffer  to  be  carried  before  him,  nor  showed  unto  the 
l^eople,  his  helmet,  whereupon  his  crown  of  gold  was 
broke  and  deposed  in  the  field  by  the  violence  of  the 
enemy,  and  great  strokes  he  had  recei\'ed,  nor  his 
other  armour  that  in  that  cruel  battle  Avas  so  sore 
broke." 

But  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  meeting  on 
Blackheath  was  that  which  assembled  to  escort  the 
cardinars  hat,  designed  for  Wolsey.  When  that 
particularly  haughty  prelate  learnt  that  the  insignia 
of  his  promotion  was  on  its  way  from  Rome  in  charge 
only  of  an  ordinary  messenger,  he  deemed  it  essential 
to  his  importance  that  a  more  imposing  method  of 
conveyance  should  be  provided.  Previoush%  therefore, 
to  the  arrival  of  the  Pope's  messenger  on  our  shores, 
Wolsey  caused  him  to  be  met  and  decked  out  with 
robes  and  trappings  suitable  to  so  important  an 
occasion.  That  glorified  pursuivant  of  Papal  authority 
was,  therefore,  brought  along  the  road  from  Dover  to 
Blackheath  with  the  greatest  show  of  deference  and 
consideration,  and  here,  on  this  waste,  the  hat  was 
met  by  great  numbers  of  the  clergy  and  nobility,  who 
conducted  it  to  London  and  to  Westminster  Abbey 
in  great  triumph. 

Wolsey's  hat,  however,  comes  out  of  chronological 
sequence.  Let  us  then  j^ut  back  the  clock  of  history 
again  to  the  year  1450,  when  Jack  Cade's  rebellion 
peopled  Blackheath  with  a  menacing  host.  These 
were  the  early  days  of  the  quarrels  of  the  rival  Roses. 
England  was  losing — whether  by  bad  generalship  or 
by  trend  of  unavoidable  circumstances  it  matters  not 
— the  provinces  of  France  won  by  Henry  the  Fifth 
whose  feeble  son  now  reigned  ;  the  kinghead  around 
whose   ill-balanced   kingship   raged   the   quarrels   and 


32  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

family  jealousies  of  the  Dukes  of  York,  Suffolk, 
Somerset,  and  Buckingham.  The  king  was  unpopular 
with  half  his  subjects,  and  all  of  them  raged  with 
wounded  pride  and  grief  at  the  loss  of  France.  The 
name  of  Mortimer  was  a  power  in  the  land,  and  the 
head  of  that  ancient  family  Avas  the  Duke  of  York, 
who  had  probably  the  greatest  following  of  feudatory 
tenants  in  England.  To  take  advantage  both  of  the 
prevailing  discontent  and  of  the  Mortimer  prestige 
came  Jack  Cade,  an  Irish  adventurer,  at  the  head  of 
twenty  thousand  followers,  and  encamped  on  Black- 
heath.  Cade  was  undoubtedly  the  Duke  of  York's 
catspaw,  but  his  sudden  success  in  gaining  adherents 
is  something  of  a  mystery  ;  for,  although  he  proclaimed 
himself  a  cousin  of  the  duke,  he  was  an  obviously 
ignorant  clown,  a  fact  seized  upon  by  Shakespeare 
with  grand  effect  in  Henry  VI,  part  i,  act  4,  where  he 
makes  Cade's  companions  to  be  Dick  the  Butcher, 
Smith  the  Weaver,  and  others  of  a  like  humble  estate, 
whose  asides  upon  Cade's  proclaiming  himself  a 
Mortimer  and  his  wife  a  descendant  of  the  Lacies  are 
very  amusing.  "  My  father  was  a  Mortimer,"  says 
Cade,  to  which  Dick  the  Butcher  rejoins,  whispering 
behind  his  hand,  that  "  he  was  an  honest  man,  and 
a  good  bricklayer  ;  "  while  as  to  his  wife's  descent 
from  the  Lacies,  he  remarks  that  "  she  was,  indeed, 
a  pedlar's  daughter,  and  sold  many  laces  " — a  punning 
speech  that,  were  it  the  work  of  a  modern  dramatist, 
would  be  received  with  a  howl  of  execration. 

Cade  retired  from  Blackheath  to  Sevenoaks  on  an 
equal  force  being  sent  to  oppose  him,  but  there 
turned  at  bay  n\)o\\  his  pursuers,  and  the  Royal  army 
dispersed,  leaving  London  at  the  mercy  of  this  rabble- 
ment.  There  the  fickle  mob  wavered  and  Cade  fled, 
presently  to  suffer  the  fate  that  befell  so  many  in 
those  bloody  days. 

The  last  occasion  on  which  Blackheath  has  figured 
largely  was  really  romantic.  The  date  1660,  the 
occasion    the    Restoration    of   His    Gracious    Majesty 


THE   RESTORATION  33 

King  Charles  the  Second  to  the  throne  of  his  ancestors. 
Romantic  it  was  because  of  the  home-coming  of  the 
interesting  exile  who  had  fled,  years  before,  for  his 
life  ;  and  was  now  come,  greatly  daring,  to  meet,  not 
only  his  loyal  citizen-subjects  here,  but  to  stand 
again  face  to  face  with  the  veteran  regiments  of  the 
army  which  had  finally  crushed  the  Royalist  hopes 
at  Worcester  Fight.  No  one  knew  how  they  would 
behave.  Commanded  by  Loyalist  officers,  they  were 
drawn  up  here  to  meet  the  king,  but,  amid  all  the 
rejoicings  of  the  people,  that  Puritan  soldiery  looked 
on,  scowling,  and  not  all  the  personal  charm  of  the 
king,  nor  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people,  could  chase 
away  the  sadness  with  which  they  looked  upon  the 
undoing  of  that  work  in  which  they  had  gained  their 
scars.  Charles  and  his  brothers  of  York  and  Gloucester 
moved  about,  unarmed,  graciously  acknowledging  the 
shouts  of  "  Long  live  King  Charles  !  "  and  receiving 
old  supporters  who  saw  this  glorious  Restoration  with 
tears  of  joy  running  down  their  cheeks  ;  and  their  gay 
demeanour  showed  their  courage,  for  little  was  wanting 
to  make  the  Ironsides  declare  for  the  Commonwealth, 
and,  spurring  their  horses,  change  this  scene  of  rejoicing 
to  one  of  blood  and  dismay.  But  the  moments  of 
suspense  were  safely  passed  ;  the  king  pressed  on  to 
London,  and  the  Restoration  was  accomplished.  It  is 
in  the  pleasant  pages  of  Woodstock  that  one  reads  how 
the  old  cavalier.  Sir  Henry  Lee,  of  Ditchley,  "  having  a 
complacent  smile  on  his  face  and  a  tear  swelling  to  his 
eye,  as  he  saw  the  banners  wa^'e  on  in  interminable 
succession,"  came  here  to  witness  the  return  of  his 
sovereign.  Here,  too,  came  Colonel  Everard,  and  xA.lice, 
his  wife  ;  Joceline  Joliffe,  who  wielded  quarterstaff  so 
well,  and  with  him  Mistress  Joceline  ;  Wildrake,  from 
Squattlesea-mere,  and  Beavis,  old  and  feeble,  a  shadow 
of  the  great  wolf-hound  he  had  been.  To  this  little 
company  came  Charles,  and,  dismounting,  asked  for 
the  old  knight's  blessing,  who,  ha\'ing  witnessed  this 
day,  was  content  to  die. 


34  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

And  England  was  "  merry  England  "  again.  The 
maypole  reappeared  upon  the  village  green,  ginger 
was  hot  i'  the  mouth  once  more,  cakes  and  ale  dis- 
appeared down  hungry  and  thirsty  throats,  and  none 
declared  eating  and  drinking  to  be  carnal  sins  ;  folks 
sang  songs  and  danced  where  had  been  only  the 
singing  of  psalms  in  nasal  tones  and  walking  circum- 
spectly ;  close-cropped  polls  grew  love-locks  again, 
and  sad  raiment  gave  place  to  the  revived  glories  of 
ancient  doublet  and  hose  whose  colours  mocked  the 
sun  for  splendour.  For  ten  years  had  the  people 
gone  in  a  penitential  gait  that  allowed  neither  gaiety 
nor  enjoyment  of  any  kind  to  pass  unreproved,  and 
now  that  all  England  was  rejoicing  that  a  pharisaical 
Puritanism  had  been  overthrown,  what  wonder  that 
young  men  and  maidens  who  were  too  young  to 
recollect  the  old  England  that  existed  before  the 
Commonwealth  plunged  now  into  the  wildest  excesses, 
aided  and  abetted  by  old  and  middle-aged  alike. 
The  pendulum  had  swung  back,  and  from  whining 
religiosity  the  people  turned  to  the  extreme  of 
licentiousness. 

And  so  at  last  to  leave  the  historic  aspect  of  Black- 
heath,  which  I  had  begun  to  fear  would  detain  me 
until  a  volume  had  been  made  of  it.  Leaving  the 
heath  by  the  Dover  Road,  which  still  follows  the  old 
Watling  Street,  the  way  is  bordered  by  apparently 
endless  rows  of  villas,  and  the  outskirts  of  Kidbrook 
and  Charlton  village  are  passed  before  one  comes  to 
where  the  fields,  bordered  by  hedgerows,  first  come  in 
sight,  and  even  these  are  disfigured  by  great  boards, 
offering  land  to  be  let  for  building-plots.  This  is, 
indeed,  a  neighbourhood  where  the  incautious  stranger 
takes  a  villa  overlooking  meadows,  for  the  sake  of  the 
view,  and  finds,  on  waking  up  one  fine  morning,  the 
builders  putting  in  the  foundations  of  a  new  house 
which  will  eventually  hide  his  prospect  ;  or  where, 
having  taken  a  month's  holiday,  he  returns,  to  find  a 
new  street  round  the  corner,  with  a  brand  new  public- 


SHOOTER'S   HILL  35 

house,  and  a  piano-organ  playing  the  latest  comic 
song,  where  {eheii,  fugaces .')  meads  and  orchards 
gladdened  his  eyes  a  few  short  weeks  before. 


IX 

As  one  proceeds  through  Charlton  village,  j^ast  an 
oddly-named  public-house,  "  The  Sun  in  the  Sands," 
and  the  uncharted  wilderness  of  Kidbrook,  Shooter's 
Hill  comes  into  view,  and  the  long  line  of  "  villas  "  ends. 
Just  beyond  the  seventh  milestone  from  London  is 
another  little  public-house,  the  "  Fox  under  the  Hill," 
followed  shortly  by  the  "  Earl  of  Moira,"  overlooked 
by  the  great  buildings  of  the  new  Fever  Hospital 
which  the  London  County  Council  has  set  up  here,  to 
the  disgust  of  all  the  dwellers  round  about.  Next  to 
this  come  the  great  dismal  buildings  of  the  Military 
Hospital,  where  soldier-invalids  crawl  about  the 
courtyards,  or,  happily  convalescent,  lean  over  the 
balconies,  smoking  and  chatting  the  hours  away. 
Funerals  go  frequently  hence,  for  here  are  always  many 
poor  fellows  struggling  with  death,  invalided  home 
from  the  cruel  heats  of  India,  and  many  are  the  sad 
little  processions  that  go  with  slow  step  and  rumbling 
of  gun-carriages  to  the  God's  Acres  of  East  Wickham 
and  Plumstead. 

But  up  among  the  young  oak  coppices,  the  lush 
grass,  and  the  perennial  springs  of  Shooter's  Hill,  all  is 
peaceful  and  pleasant.  You  can  hear  the  Woolwich 
bugles  sing  softly  through  the  summer  air  ;  birds 
twitter  overhead,  the  robustious  crowings  of  arrogant 
cocks,  the  sharp  ring  of  jerry-builders'  trowels  comes 
up  from  below,  the  winds  whisper  among  the  oaks  and 
rustle  like  the  frou-frou  of  silk  through  the  foliage  of 
the  silver-beeches — ^while  London  toils  and  moils 
beyond.  Distant  smoke  drives  before  the  wind  in 
earnest    of   those    metropolitan    labours,    and    kindly 


36  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

obscures  many  vulgar  details  ;  but  if  you  cannot  see 
Jerusalem  or  Madagascar  from  here,  nor  even  Saint 
Paul's,  you  can  at  least  view  that  most  commanding 
object  in  the  landscape  near  by,  Beckton  Gasworks,  and 
on  another  quarter  of  the  horizon  shines  the  Crystal 
Palace,  glittering  afar  off  like  a  City  of  the  Blest, 
which  indeed  it  is  not,  nor  anything  like  it.  Directly 
in  front,  the  sky-line  is  formed  by  the  elevated  table- 
land of  Blackheath,  while  in  mid-distance  the  few 
remaining  fields  of  Charlton  are  seen  to  be  making 
a  gallant  stand  before  the  advances  of  villadom. 

Shooter's  Hill  was  not  always  a  place  whereon  one 
could  rest  in  safety.  Indeed,  it  bore  for  long  years 
a  particularly  bad  name  as  being  the  lurking-place  of 
ferocious  footpads,  cutpurses,  highwaymen,  cut-throats, 
and  gentry  of  allied  professions  who  rushed  out  from 
these  leafy  coverts  and  took  liberal  toll  from  wayfarers. 
Six  men  were  hanged  hereabouts,  in  times  not  so  very 
remote,  for  robbery  with  murder  upon  the  highway  ; 
the  remains  of  four  of  them  decorated  the  summit  of 
the  hill,  while  two  others  swung  gracefully  from 
gibbets  beside  the  Eltham  Road.  The  "  Bull  "  inn, 
standing  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  was  in  coaching  days 
the  first  post-house  at  which  travellers  stopped  and 
changed  horses  on  their  way  from  London  to  Dover. 
The  "  Bull  "  has  been  rebuilt  in  recent  years,  but 
tradition  says  (and  tradition  is  not  always  such  a  liar 
as  some  folks  would  have  us  believe)  that  Dick  Turpin 
frequented  the  road,  and  that  it  was  at  this  old  house 
he  held  the  landlady  over  the  fire  in  order  to  make  her 
confess  where  she  had  hoarded  her  money.  The 
incident  borrows  a  certain  picturesqueness  from  lapse 
of  time,  but,  on  the  wiiole,  it  is  not  to  be  regretted  that 
the  days  of  barbecued  landladies  are  past. 

Our  old  friend  Pepys  has  something  to  say  of  what 
he  did  or  what  was  done  to  him  on  Shooter's  Hill, 
under  date  of  April  11,  1661  ;  but  it  was,  at  any  rate, 
not  a  happening  of  any  great  note,  and  moreover, 
Mr.  Pepys'  prattle  sometimes  becomes  tiresome,  and 


HIGHWAYMEN  37 

so  we  will  pass  him  by  for  once  in  a  way.  His  fellow 
diarist,  Evelyn,  was  here  in  1699,  for  he  writes,  under 
August,  "  I  drank  the  Shooter's  Hill  waters."  A  very 
much  more  important  person.  Queen  Anne,  to  wit 
(who,  alas  !  is  dead),  is  also  said  to  have  partaken  of  the 
mineral  spring  which  made  Shooter's  Hill  a  minor  spa 
long  years  ago.  The  spring  is  still  here,  and  it  is  this 
which  makes  the  summit  of  Shooter's  Hill  so  graciously 
green  and  refreshing.  People  no  longer  come  to  drink 
the  waters,  but  he  who  thirsts  by  the  wayside  and  sports 
the  blue  ribbon,  may,  an  he  please,  instead  of  calling 
at  the  "  Bull,"  or  the  "  Red  Lion,"  across  the  road, 
quench  his  thirst  at  a  drinking-fountain,  which  is 
something  between  a  lich-gate  and  a  Swiss  chalet, 
erected  here  in  recent  years. 

So  long  ago  as  1767  a  project  was  set  afoot  for 
building  a  town  on  the  summit  of  Shooter's  Hill, 
but  it  came  to  nothing,  which  is  not  at  all  strange 
when  one  considers  how  constantly  the  dwellers  there 
would  have  been  obliged  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the 
gentlemen  whom  Americans  happily  call  "  road- 
agents."  And  here  is  a  sample  of  what  would  happen 
now  and  again,  taken,  not  from  the  romantic  pages  of 
"  Don  Juan,"  nor  from  Dickens'  "  Tale  of  Two  Cities," 
but  from  the  sober  and  truthful  columns  of  a  London 
paper,  under  date  of  1773.  "  On  Sunday  night,"  we 
read,  "  about  ten  o'clock.  Colonel  Craige  and  his 
servant  were  attacked  near  Shooter's  Hill  by  two 
highwajauen,  well  mounted,  who,  on  the  colonel's 
declaring  he  would  not  be  robbed,  immediatel}^  fired 
and  shot  the  servant's  horse  in  the  shoulder.  On  this 
the  footman  discharged  a  pistol,  and  the  assailants 
rode  off  with  great  precipitation."  That  they  rode  off 
^nth  nothing  else  shows  how  effectually  the  colonel  and 
his  servant,  by  firmly  grasping  the  nettle  danger, 
plucked  the  flower  safety. 

It  was  by  similarly  bold  conduct  that  Don  Juan 
put  to  flight  no  fewer  than  four  assailants  on  this 
very    spot.     Arrived    thus    far   from    Dover,    he    had 


38  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

alighted,  and  was  meditatively  pacing  along  the  road 

behind   his   carriage   when But   there  !     It   had 

best  be  read  in  Byron's  verse,  and  let  no  one  cry  out 
upon  me  for  quoting  "  Don  Juan,"  and  say  the  thing 
is  nothing  new,  lest  I,  in  turn,  call  fie  upon  him  for  an 
undue  acquaintance  with  that  "  wicked  "  poem — 

.     .     .     Juan  now  was  borne, 
Just  as  the  day  began  to  wane  and  darken, 

O'er  the  high  hill  which  looks,  with  pride  or  scorn, 
Toward  the  great  city.     Ye  who  have  a  spark  in 

Your  veins  of  Cockney  spirit,  smile  or  mourn, 
According  as  you  tako  things  well  or  ill ; 
Bold  Britons,  we  are  now  on  Shooter's  Hill ! 


A  mighty  mass  of  brick,  and  smoke,  and  shipping 

Dirty  and  dusky,  but  as  wide  as  eye 
Could  reach,  with  here  and  there  a  sail  just  skipping 

In  sight,  then  lost  amidst  the  forestry 
Of  masts  ;   a  wilderness  of  steeples  peeping 

On  tiptoe  through  their  sea-coal  canopy  ; 
A  huge,  dun  cupola,  like  a  foolscap  crown 
On  a  fool's  head — and  there  is  London  Town  ! 


Don  Juan  had  got  out  on  Shooter's  Hill : 

Sunset  the  time,  the  place  the  same  declivity 

Which  looks  along  that  vale  of  good  and  ill 
Where  London  streets  ferment  in  full  activity  ; 

While  everything  around  was  calm  and  still, 

Except  the  creak  of  wheels,  which  on  their  pivot  he 

Heard  ;   and  that  bee  like,  bubbling,  busy  hum 

Of  cities,  that  boil  over  with  their  scum. 

i  say  Don  Juan,  wrapt  in  contemplation, 

Walk'd  on  behind  his  carriage,  o'er  the  summit, 

And  lost  in  wonder  of  so  great  a  nation. 

Gave  way  to  it,  since  he  could  not  o'ercome  it. 

"  And  here,"  he  cried,  "  is  Freedom's  chosen  station  ; 
Here  peals  the  people's  voice,  nor  can  entomb  it 

Racks,  prisons,  inquisitions  ;   resurrection 

Awaits  it,  each  new  meeting  or  election. 

"  Here  are  chaste  wives,  pure  lives  ;   here  people  pay 
But  what  they  please  ;   and,  if  that  things  be  dear, 

'Tis  only  that  they  love  to  throw  away 

Their  cash,  to  show  how  much  they  have  a  year. 

Here  laws  are  all  inviolate  ;   none  lay 

Traps  for  the  traveller  ;   every  highway's  clear  : 

Here  " — here  he  was  interrupted  by  a  knife. 

With, — "  Damn  your  eyes  !     Your  money  or  your  life  ! 

These  freeborn  sounds  proceeded  from  four  pads. 
In  ambush  laid,  who  had  perceived  him  loiter 

Behind  his  carriage  ;   and,  like  handy  lads, 
Had  seized  the  lucky  hour  to  reconnoitre, 

In  which  the  heedless  gentleman  who  gads 
Upon  the  road,  unless  he  prove  a  fighter. 

May  find  himself,  within  that  isle  of  riches, 

Exposed  to  lose  his  life  as  well  as  breeches. 


DON   JUAN  39 

Juan  did  not  understand  a  word 

Of  English,  save  their  shibboleth,  "  God  damn  !  " 
And  even  that  he  had  so  rarely  heard, 

He  sometimes  thought  'twas  only  their  "  Salaam," 
Or  "  God  be  with  you  !  "  and  'f.s  not  absurd 

To  think  so  ;    for,  half  English  as  I  am 
(To  my  misfortune),  never  can  I  say 

r  heard  them  wish  "  God  with  you,"  save  that  way. 

But  if  he  failed  to  understand  their  speech,  he 
interpreted  their  actions  accurately  enough,  and, 
drawing  a  pocket-pistol,  shot  the  foremost  in  the 
stomach,  who,  writhing  in  agony  on  the  ground,  and 
unable  to  discriminate  between  Continental  nation- 
alities, called  out  that  "  the  bloody  Frenchman  "  had 
killed  him.  His  three  companions  did  not  wait  to 
discover  that  it  was  not  a  Frenchman,  but  a  Spaniard. 
No,  they  promptly  ran  away,  and  left  their  fellow  to 
die,  which  he  presently  did,  and  Don  Juan,  after  an 
interview  with  the  coroner,  proceeded  on  his  road  in 
wonderment.  "  Perhaps,"  he  thought,  "  it  is  the 
country's  wont  to  welcome  foreigners  in  this  way." 

Shooter's  Hill  is  pictured  excellently  well  in  A  Tale  of 
Tzvo  Cities ;  the  time,  "  a  Friday  night,  late  in 
November,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  seventy-five,"  the  occasion  the 
passing  of  the  Dover  Mail.  The  coachman  was 
"  laying  on  "  to  the  horses  like  another  Macduff,  and 
the  near  leader  of  the  tired  team  was  shaking  its  head 
and  everything  upon  it,  as  though  denying  that  the 
coach  could  be  got  up  the  hill  at  all  ;  while  the 
passengers,  having  been  turned  out  to  walk  up  the 
road  and  case  the  horses,  splashed  miserably  in  the 
slush.  The  time  was  "  ten  minutes,  good,  past 
eleven,"  and  the  coachman  had  but  just  finished 
addressing  the  horses  in  such  strange  exclamations  as 
"  Tst  !  Yah  !  Get  on  with  you  !  ^  My  blood  !  "  and 
other  picturesque,  not  to  say  lurid,  phrases,  when 
sounds  were  heard  along  the  highway.  Sounds  of 
any  sort  on  the  road  could  not  at  this  hour  be  aught 
than  ominous,  and  so  the  passengers,  who  w^re  just 
upon  the  point  of  re-entering  the  coach,  shivered  and 


40  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

wondered  if  their  purses  and  watches  were  quite  safe 
which  were  lying  snugly  perdu  in  their  boots. 

"  Tst  !  Joe  !  "  calls  the  coachman,  from  his  box, 
warningly  to  the  guard. 

"  What  do  you  say,  Tom  ?  " 

"  I  say  a  horse  at  a  canter  coming  up,"  replies  Tom. 

"  I  say  a  horse  at  a  gallop,  Tom,"  rejoins  the  guard, 
entrenching  himself  behind  his  seat,  and  cocking  his 
blunderbuss,  calling  out  to  the  passengers  at  the  same 
time,  "  Gentlemen,  in  the  King's  name,  all  of  you  !  " 

The  mail  stopped.  The  hearts  of  the  passengers 
within  thumped  audibly,  and  if  one  could  not  see  how 
they  blenched,  it  was  only  owing  to  the  obscurity 
of  the  mildewy  inside  of  the  old  Mail.  There  they  sat, 
in  anxious  expectancy,  amid  the  disagreeable  smell 
arising  from  the  damp  and  dirty  straw,  and  the  relief 
they  experienced  when  it  was  not  a  highwayman 
who  rode  up  to  them,  but  only  a  messenger  for 
Mr.  Jarvis  Lorry,  who  sat  shivering  among  the  rest, 
may  (in  the  words  of  a  certain  class  of  novelists) 
''  be  better  imagined  than  described." 

There  is  but  one  criticism  I  have  to  make  cf  this ; 
but  it  is  a  serious  point.  There  was  no  Dover  Mail 
coach  in  1775,  for  the  earliest  of  all  mail  coaches,  that 
between  Bristol  and  London,  was  not  established 
before  1784.  The  mails  until  then  were  carried  by 
post-boys  on  horse-back. 

Of  Severndroog  Castle,  built  on  the  crest  of  Shooter's 
Hill  during  the  last  century,  I  shall  say  nothing, 
because,  for  one  thing,  it  is  of  little  interest,  and, 
for  another,  whatever  has  to  be  said  about  it  belongs 
to  the  province  of  the  Guide  Books,  upon  whose 
territory  I  do  not  propose  to  infringe.  I  want  to 
give  a  modicum  of  information  with  the  maximum 
of  amusement,  with  which  declaration  of  policy  I  will 
proceed  along  the  road  to  Dover. 

Directly  one  comes  to  the  crest  of  the  hill  there 
opens  a  wide  view  over  the  Kentish  Weald.  Reaches 
of  the   Thames    are    seen,    peeping   through   foliage  ; 


TRAMPS  41 

distant  houses  and  whitewashed  cottages  shine  clearly 
miles  away,  and  the  spire  of  Bexley  Church  closes 
the  view  in  front,  where  the  road  ends  dustily.  Along 
this  road  comes  daily  and  all  day  a  varied  procession 
of  tramps.  The  traveller  looks  down  upon  them  from 
this  eyrie  with  wonderment  and  dismay  ;  the  cottagers, 
the  householders  and  gardeners  hereabouts,  see  them 
pass  with  less  surprise  and  additional  misgivings,  for 
their  gardens,  their  hen-roosts,  clothes-lines  and 
orchards  pay  tribute  to  these  Ishmaelites  to  whom  the 
rights  of  property  are  but  imperfectly  known.  This  is 
why  the  gates  and  doors  along  the  Dover  Road  are  so 
uniformly  and  resolutely  barred,  bolted,  chained,  and 
padlocked  ;  for  these  reasons  ferocious  dogs  roam  amid 
the  suburban  pleasances,  and  turn  red  eyes  and 
foaming  mouths  toward  one  who  leans  across  garden- 
gates  to  admire  the  flowers  with  which  the  fertile  soil  of 
Kent  has  so  liberally  spangled  every  cultivated  spot ; 
and  to  them  is  due  the  murderous -looking  garnishment 
of  jagged  and  broken  glass  with  which  every  wall-top  is 
armed.  "  Peace  must  lie  down  armed  "  on  the  Dover 
Road  ;  the  citizen  must  lock,  bolt,  and  bar  his  house  o' 
nights,  and  does  well  to  exhibit  warning  placards, 
"  Beware  of  the  Dog  !  "  He  does  better  to  tip  the 
policeman  occasionally  to  keep  an  especially  vigilant 
look-out,  and  it  is  not  an  excess  of  precaution  that 
so  frequently  covers  the  flower-beds  with  wire-netting. 


X 

There  is,  indeed,  no  road  to  equal  the  Dover  Road 
for  thieves,  tramps,  cadgers,  and  miscellaneous 
vagrants,  either  for  number  or  depravity.  Throughout 
the  year  they  infest  alike  the  highways  and  byways 
of  Kent,  but  the  most  constant  procession  of  them  is  to 
be  seen  on  the  great  main  road  between  London  and 
the  sea.     A  great  deal  of  begging,  some  petty  pilfering. 


42  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  a  modicum  of  work  in  the  fruit  season  and  during 
the  hop-harvest  suffice  to  keep  them  going  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  year,  while  the  winter  months  are 
fleeted  in  progresses  from  one  casual  ward  to  another 
in  the  numerous  unions  along  the  road.  Phenomenally 
ragged,  bronzed  by  the  sun,  unshaven,  unshorn,  they 
are  met,  men,  women,  and  children  alike,  at  every  turn, 
for  many  miles,  especially  between  Southwark  and 
Canterbury.  The  sixteen  miles'  stretch  of  road 
between  Canterbury  and  Dover  is  comparatively 
unfrequented  by  them  ;  but  Gravesend,  Dartford, 
Crayford,  and  Bexley  Heath  are  centres  of  the  most 
disgraceful  mendicanc}^  "  Lodgings  for  travellers  " 
at  fourpence  a  night,  or  two  shillings  a  week,  are  a 
feature  of  these  places,  and  how  prominent  a  feature 
cannot  be  guessed  by  any  one  who  has  not  been  there. 
Whole  families  on  the  tramp  are  to  be  met  with  between 
these  places,  and  long  vistas  of  them  are  gained  along 
any  particularly  straight  piece  of  road.  They  are 
everything  that  is  dirty  and  horrible,  but  they  are 
perfectly  happy  and  quite  irreclaimable,  many  of  them 
being  hereditary  tramps. 

Philanthropic  societies  inquire  into  the  tramp  ; 
classify  him,  endeavour  to  cleanse  him  and  restore 
him  to  some  place  in  society,  but  all  to  no  purpose. 
He  is  quite  satisfied  with  himself ;  he  likes  dirt,  and 
dislikes  nothing  so  much  as  either  moral  or  physical 
cleansing.  That  is  one  reason  why  he  seeks  the 
shelter  of  the  casual  ward  only  as  a  last  resource. 
He  has  to  undergo  a  bath  there,  and  feels  as  chilly 
when  his  top-dressing  of  grime  is  removed  as  you 
and  I  would  be  were  we  turned  naked  into  the  streets. 
To  reform  your  tramp  it  would  be  essential  to  snare 
him  at  a  very  early  age  indeed,  and,  even  then, 
I  am  not  sure  but  that  his  natural  traits  would  break 
out  suddenly,  like  those  of  any  other  wild  beast  kept 
in  captivity. 

The  truth  is,  tramping  is  a  very  old  profession,  and 
hereditary  in  a  degree  very  few  good  people  imagine. 


TRAMPS'    SIGNS  43 

Unlettered,  but  highly  organised,  trampdom  has  a 
lingua  franca  of  its  own,  and  its  signs  are  to  be  read, 
chalked  on  the  fences  and  gateposts  of  the  Dover  Road, 
as  surely  as  one  could  read  a  French  novel. 

The  argot  and  the  sign-language  of  the  road  are 
not  difficult  to  acquire  by  those  who  have  observant 
eyes  and  ears  to  hearken,  but,  like  all  languages,  they 
are  ever  changing,  and  the  accepted  signs  of  yesteryear 
are  constantly  superseded  by  newer  symbols.  Little 
do  the  country-folk  understand  the  significance  of  the 
chalk-marks  on  their  gates  and  walls.  Does  the  portly 
yeoman  suspect  that  the  \  on  his  gatepost  means 
"  no  good  "  ?  And  how  mixed  would  be  the  feelings 
of  many  a  worthy  lady  w^ere  the  inner  meaning  of 
0  revealed  to  her — "  Religious,  but  good  on  the  whole." 
Were  the  eloquence  of  that  mark  discovered  to  her, 
she  would  know  at  once  how  it  was  that  the  poor  men, 
with  their  ragged  beards  and  their  toes  peeping  through 
their  boots,  were  so  unfailingly  pious  and  thankful  for 
the  cold  scran  and  the  threepenny-piece  with  which 
she  relieved  their  needs,  asking  a  blessing  on  her  and 
hers  until  they  were  out  of  sight,  when  they  "  stowed  " 
the  piety  and  threw  the  provisions  into  the  nearest 
ditch,  calling  in  at  the  next  roadside  pub  to  take  the 
edge  off  their  thirst  with  that  threepenny-piece.  It 
may  safely  be  said  that  the  tramp  is  not  grateful. 
He  is,  indeed,  altruistic,  but  his  altruism  he  saves  for  his 
kind,  and  he  exhibits  it  in  the  danger-signals  he  chalks 
up  in  places  the  brotherhood  wot  of.  There  are 
degrees  of  danger,  as  of  luck.  Some  good-hearted 
people  become  soured  by  many  calls  on  their  generosity, 
and  one  can  readily  understand  even  the  mildest- 
mannered  of  elderly  ladies  becoming  restive  when 
the  sixth  tramp  appears  at  the  close  of  the  day. 
Other  people,  too,  lose  their  generosity  with  the 
bedding-out  plants  which  one  of  the  fraternity  has 
"  sneaked  "  from  the  front  garden  under  cover  of  night. 
In  the  first  instance,  the  sign  A  (which  means  "  Spoilt 
by  too  many  callers  ")  is  likely  to  be  found  somewhere 


44  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

handy,  and  in  the  second  that  innocent-looking 
triangle  is  apt  to  become  □>  the  English  of  which  is 
"  Likely  to  have  you  taken  up,"  even  if  it  does  not 
become  O  =  "  Dangerous.     Sure  of  being  quodded." 


XI 

Passing  many  of  these  undesirable  waj^farers,  one 
comes,  in  a  mile — fields  and  hedgerows  and  market- 
gardens  on  either  side— to  Shoulder  of  Mutton  Green, 
a  scrubby  piece  of  common-ground  shaped  like  South 
America — but  smaller.  Hence  the  peculiar  eloquence 
of  its  name.  The  Kent  County  Council  has  set  up 
a  large  and  imposing  notice-board  at  the  corner  of  the 
green  which  bears  its  name  and  a  portentous  number 
of  bye-laws,  and  when  the  sun  is  low  and  shadows  slant 
(the  board  is  so  large  and  the  green  so  small),  the  shade 
of  it  falls  across  the  green  and  into  the  next  field. 

And  now  comes  Belle  Grove,  spelled,  as  one  may  see 
on  the  stuccoed  cottages  by  the  wayside,  with  a  pleasing 
diversity.  Belle  Grove,  Bell  Grove,  and  Belgrove  ;  and 
one  would  pin  one's  faith  on  the  correct  form  being  the 
second  variety,  because  the  place  is  not  beautiful,  nor 
ever  could  have  been. 

To  Bell  Grove,  then,  succeeds  Welling,  and  Welling 
is  a  quite  uninteresting  and  shabby  hamlet  fringing 
the  road,  ten-and-a-quarter  miles  from  London  Bridge. 
The  new  suburban  railway  from  London  to  Bexley 
Heath  crosses  the  road,  and  has  a  station — a  waste  of 
sand,  stones,  and  white  palings — here.  The  place,  says 
Hasted,  in  his  "  History  of  Kent,"  was  called  Well  End, 
from  the  safe  arrival  of  the  traveller  at  it,  after  having 
escaped  the  danger  of  robbers  through  the  hazardous 
road  from  Shooter's  Hill,"  which  derivation,  though 
regarded  as  a  happy  effort  of  the  imagination,  is 
considerably  below  the  dignified  level  of  a  county 
historian.      Indeed,     I     seem     to     see     in     this     the 


TO   BEXLEY  45 

irresponsible  frivolity  of  the  guards  and  coachmen  of 
the  Dover  ]\Iail.  Why,  the  thing  reeks  of  coaching 
wit,  and  how  Hasted,  a  Fellow  of  the  Society  of 
Antiquaries,  could  have  included  in  his  monumental 
work  (which  took  him  forty  years  to  write)  so  obvious 
a  witticism,  is  beyond  my  comprehension.  Shall  I  be 
considered  pedantic  if  I  point  out  that  the  place-name, 
with  its  termination  wg,  carries  with  it  evidence  of 
being  as  old  as  Saxon  times,  and  denotes  that  here  was 
the  settlement  of  an  ancient  tribe,  or  patriarchial 
family,  the  Wellings  ?  I  will  dare  the  deed  and  record 
the  fact,  remarking,  meanwhile,  that  if  other  county 
historians  were  as  little  learned  as  Hasted,  and  equally 
speculative,  they  would  seem  more  human,  and  their 
deadly  tomes  become  much  more  entertaining. 

But,  after  this,  it  Avould  not  beseem  me  to  do  else 
than  record  the  fact  that  the  new  suburban  district 
springing  up  beside  the  road,  half  a  mile  past  Welling, 
is  called  "  Crook  Log."  Why  "  Crook  Log,"  and  whence 
came  that  singular  name,  are  things  "  rop  in  mistry," 
and  I  will  run  no  risks  of  becoming  fogged  in  rash 
endeavours  to  elucidate  the  origin  of  this  place-name. 

Half  a  mile  onward,  and  then  begins  Bexley  Heath. 
"  Once  upon  a  time,"  that  is  to  say,  before  an  Act  of 
Parliament  was  obtained  in  1817  for  enclosing  what  was 
then  a  wide,  wild  tract  of  desolate  heath-land,  Bexley 
Heath  was  entirely  innocent  of  buildings. 

The  old  village  of  Bexley  lies  a  mile  and  a  half  to 
the  right  of  the  road,  and  is  as  rural,  peaceful,  and 
pleasant  as  Bexley  Heath  is  mean  and  wretched. 
Between  here  and  the  village  lies  Hall  Place,  a  Tudor 
mansion  of  great  size  and  stately  architecture,  largely 
distinguished  for  its  chequer-board  patterning  of  flint 
and  stone.  The  property  was  once  that  of  the  family 
called  "  At-hall,"  from  their  residence  here,  in  an  earlier 
mansion.  The  Tudor  flint-and-stone  building  we  now 
see  was  built  by  Sir  Justinian  Champneis,  a  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  towards  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century.     In  less  than  a  hundred  years  the  Champneis 


46  THE  DOVER  ROAD 

were  succeeded  by  the  Austens,  who  made  alterations, 
until  1772,  when  it  passed  to  Sir  Francis  Dashwood, 
in  whose  family  it  yet  remains. 

In  the  neighbourhood  of  Bexley  Heath,  and  also 
at  Crayford  and  places  beside  the  Thames  near  Dartford 
are  some  singular  shafts  of  unknown  age  or  purpose, 
sunk  into  the  soil,  frequently  to  a  depth  of  a  hundred 
feet,  through  the  chalk  of  which  this  district  chiefly 
consists.  "  Danes'  Holes,"  the  country-folk  call  them, 
and  they  are  traditionally  supposed  to  have  been 
constructed  as  hiding-places  to  which  the  old 
inhabitants  of  these  parts  could  retire  when  the 
Northmen's  piratical  fleets  appeared  in  the  estuary  of 
the  Thames.  Antiquaries  have  a  theory  that  these 
singular  pits  were  sunk  by  our  neolithic  forbears  in 
search  of  flints.  The  antiquaries,  however,  are  most 
probably  wrong,  because  flints  were  to  be  found  readily 
enough  by  the  men  of  the  Stone  Age,  without  going 
to  the  trouble  of  mining  for  them  ;  and  no  one  has  yet 
arisen  to  show  that  neolithic  man  was  more  likely  than 
we,  his  descendants,  to  give  himself  unnecessary  labour. 

We  will,  therefore,  assume  that  the  legendary  name 
of  "  Danes'  Holes  "  shadows  forth  the  purpose  of  these 
shafts  a  great  deal  more  correctly  than  the  ingenious 
theories  of  antiquaries,  made  to  fit  personal  pre- 
dilections ;  the  more  especially  as  legendary  history 
is  generally  found  to  square  with  facts  much  more 
frequently  than  scientific  pundits  would  have  us  believe. 

These  remarkable  pits  commence  with  a  trumpet- 
shaped  orifice  Avhich  immediately  contracts  into  a 
narrow  shaft,  broadening  at  the  bottom  into  a  bulb-like 
chamber,  not  unremotely  resembling  in  shape  the  tube 
and  bulb  of  a  thermometer.  "  By  a  curious  coinci- 
dence," says  one  who  has  long  been  familiar  with  these 
strange  survivals,  ''  the  shape  of  the  Bexley  shafts 
is  exactly  that  of  a  local  beer-measure  which  is  held  in 
great  estimation.  In  several  houses  may  be  seen  an 
advertisement  that  "  beer  is  sold  by  the  yard." 


CRAYFORD  47 


XII 


Leaving  Bexley  Heath,  the  road  becomes  suddenly 
beautiful,  where  it  loses  the  last  of  the  mean  shops 
— the  cats' -meat  vendors,  the  tinkers,  the  marine 
stores — that  give  so  distinct  and  unwholesome  a  cachet 
to  its  long-drawn-out  street.  The  highway  goes  down 
a  hill  overhung  with  tall  trees,  with  chestnuts  and 
hawthorns,  whose  blossoms  fill  the  air  in  spring  with 
sweet  and  heavy  scents  ;  but,  in  the  hollow,  gasworks 
contend  with  them,  and  generally,  it  is  sad  to  say, 
come  off  easy  victors.  Follows  then  a  nondescript 
bend  of  the  road  which  brings  one  presently  into 
Crayford,  fifteen  miles  from  London. 

Antiquaries  are  divided  in  opinion  over  the  ancient 
history  of  Crayford.  While  some  incline  to  the  belief 
that  it  is  the  site  of  the  Roman  Noviomagus,  others 
are  prone  to  select  Keston  Common  as  the  locality 
of  that  shadowy  camp  and  city.  The  question  will 
probably  never  be  settled  beyond  a  doubt,  but  the 
weight  of  evidence  is  strong  in  favour  of  Keston 
Common,  eight  miles  away  to  the  south-west.  Here 
still  exist  the  traces  of  great  earthworks,  covering  a 
space  of  a  hundred  acres,  while  numerous  finds  of 
Roman  coins  and  pottery  have  been  made  from  time 
to  time.  At  Crayford,  on  the  other  hand,  the  only 
presumptive  evidence  is  to  be  found  in  this  having 
been  that  old  Roman  military  way,  Watling  Street, 
and,  in  the  very  slender  thread  of  allusion  to  the  name 
of  Noviomagus,  supposed,  on  the  authority  of  Hasted, 
to  be  extant  in  the  title  of  the  half-forgotten  manor  of 
Newbury. 

But,  however  vague  may  be  the  connection  between 
Noviomagus  and  Crayford,  certain  it  is  that  here,  in 
457,  was  fought  that  tremendous  battle  between  the 
Saxons  under  Hengist,  and  the  Britons  commanded 
by  Vortigern,  a  conflict  in  which  four  thousand  of  the 
Romanised  Britons  were  slain.     It  was  in  449  that 


48  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

Hengist  and  Horsa,  brother-chiefs*  of  the  Jutish- 
Saxons,  landed  at  Ebbsfleet,  in  Thanet,  at  the  invita- 
tion of  Vortigern,  who  sought  their  aid  against  the 
Picts  and  the  Sea-rovers.  They  came  in  three  ships, 
and  their  original  force  could  scarcely  have  numbered 
more  than  five  hundred  men.  But,  having  warred 
for  the  Britons,  and  fought  side  by  side  with  them 
against  the  Scots,  they  soon  perceived  how  defenceless 
was  the  land.  "  They  sent,"  says  the  Anglo-Saxon 
chronicler,  "  to  the  Angles,  and  bade  them  be  told  of 
the  Avorthlessness  of  the  Britons,  and  the  richness  of  the 
land."  In  response  to  this  invitation,  there  came  from 
over  sea  the  men  of  the  Old  Saxons,  the  Jutes,  and  the 
Angles  ;  and,  six  years  after  the  landing  of  the  two 
brothers,  these  treacherous  allies,  strengthened  in 
number,  felt  strong  enough  to  attempt  the  seizure  of 
Kent.  Pretexts  for  a  quarrel  were  readily  found,  and, 
through  the  mists  that  hang  about  the  scanty  records 
of  that  time,  we  hear  first  of  the  Battle  of  Aylesford, 
fought  in  455,  in  which  the  Britons  experienced  their 
first  great  defeat.  Here,  though,  Horsa  Avas  slain, 
and  to  Hengist,  with  his  son  Esc,  was  left  the  foundation 
of  the  Saxon  kingdom  of  Kent.  The  Battle  of  Crayford 
for  a  time  left  all  this  fertile  corner  of  England  to  the 
Saxons.  "  The  Britons,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  forsook 
the  land  of  Kent,  and  in  great  consternation  fled  to 
London."  But,  though  enervated  by  long  years  of 
luxury,  and  so  greatly  demoralised  by  defeats,  the 
Britons  had  yet  some  force  left.  Vortigern,  "  the 
betrayer  of  Britain,"  as  he  has  come  down  to  us  in  the 
pages  of  history,  was  overthrown  by  another  enemy, 
a    rival    British    prince,    that    doughty    Romanised 

*  The  real  names  of  these  two  brothers  are  unknown.  They  took  the 
names  by  which  they  are  known  in  liistory  from  the  banners  under  which 
their  men  fought ;  banners  which  bore  the  cognizance  of  a  white  iiorse  : 
Hengist  and  Horsa  being  merely  the  Jutish-Saxon  words  for  "  horse  "  and 
"  mare."  The  Danish,  indeed,  still  use  the  word  "  hors  "  for  mare,  and  a 
survival  of  the  old  badge  of  these  fierce  pagans  is  still  to  be  met  with  in  the 
familiar  white  horse  of  Brunswick-Hanover.  The  prancing  steed  that  remains 
to  this  day  the  Kentish  device,  with  its  dauntless  motto  "  Tnvicta,"  is  also 
a  survival  from  the  days  when  Hengist  and  Horsa  founded  the  first  Saxon 
kingdom  in  Britain. 


A  QUAINT  EPITAPH  4d 

chieftain,  Aurelius  Ambrosianus,  who,  after  defeating 
that  weak  king,  gathered  up  the  scattered  patriots,  and 
feU  upon  the  Saxons  with  such  fury  that  they  were 
driven  back  to  that  Isle  of  Thanet  which  had  originally 
been  given  them  for  their  services  against  the  Scots  of 
Strathclyde.  "  Falchions  drank  blood  that  day  ;  the 
buzzard  buried  his  horny  beak  in  the  carcases  of  the 
slain  ;  the  eagles  feasted  royally  on  the  flesh  of  them 
that  fell  ;  and  the  whitening  bones  of  the  Northmen 
long  afterwards  strewed  the  fair  land  of  Kent." 

Eight  years  later,  the  work  of  Aurelius  began  to 
be  undone,  and  in  another  eight  years  the  veteran 
Hengist  and  his  son  had  completed  the  foundation  of 
their  kingdom. 

Crayford,  it  will  thus  be  seen,  is  a  town  of  con- 
siderable historic  interest ;  but,  apart  from  this  claim 
upon  one's  attention,  it  has,  I  fear,  no  attraction 
whatever. 

But  here  is  Crayford  church,  in  whose  yard  is  one  of 
the  quaintest  epitaphs  imaginable  :— 

"  Here  lies  the  body  of  Peter  Isnell,  thirty  years 
clerk  of  this  parish.  He  lived  respected  as  a  pious 
and  mirthful  man,  and  died  on  his  wa}^  to  church, 
to  assist  at  a  wedding,  on  the  31st  of  March,  1811, 
aged  70.  The  inhabitants  of  Crayford  have  raised 
this  stone  to  his  cheerful  memory,  and  as  a  token 
of  his  long  and  faithful  services. 

The  life  of  this  Clerk  was  just  three -score  and  ten, 

Nearly  half  of  which  time  he  chauuted  Amen. 

In  his  youth  he  was  married,  like  other  young  men  ; 

But  his  wife  died  one  day,  so  he  chaunted  Amen. 

A  second  he  married — she  departed— what  then  ? 

He  married  and  buried  a  third,  with  Amen. 

Thus,  his  joys  and  his  sorrows  were  treble  ;   but  tlien 

His  voice  was  deep  bass  as  he  sung  out  Amen. 

On  the  horn  he  could  blow,  as  well  as  most  men 

So  his  horn  was  exalted  in  sounding  Amen. 

But  he  lost  all  his  wind  after  three-score  and  ten 

And  here,  with  three  wives,  he  waits,  till  again 

The  trumpet  shall  rouse  him  to  sing  out  Amen. 

The  distance  l^etween  Crayford  and  Dartford  is  but 
two  miles,  past  White  Hill  ;    and  all  the  way  are  fruit 

E 


50  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

gardens,  tramps,  and  odious  little  terraces  of  brick 
cottages  with  tiny  gardens  in  front,  whose  brilliant, 
old-fashioned  flowers — sweet-williams,  marigolds,  and 
polyanthuses — put  to  shame  these  wretched  efforts  of 
the  builder.  There  is,  half  a  mile  from  Crayford, 
beside  the  road,  an  iron  post  with  the  City  of  London 
arms  and  the  legend,  "  Act  24  &  25  Vict.  cap.  42,"  in 
relief.  This  wayside  pillar  marks  at  once  the  limits  of 
the  London  Police  District,  and  the  boundary  of  the 
area  affected  by  the  London  Coal  and  Wine  Duties 
Continuance  Act  of  1861 .  The  City  of  London  has  been 
entitled  from  time  immemorial  to  levy  dues  on  all  coal 
entering  the  metropolis,  and  this  privilege,  regulated 
from  time  to  time,  was  abolished  only  in  1889.  Two 
separate  duties  of  twelve  pence  and  one  penny  per  ton 
were  confirmed  by  this  act  and  authorised  to  be  levied 
upon  coals,  culm,  and  cinders  ;  while  the  acts  dating 
from  1694,  imposing  a  tax  of  four  shillings  per  tun  on 
all  kinds  of  wine  were  at  the  same  time  confirmed  and 
renewed,  and  the  radius  made  identical  with  the  London 
police  jurisdiction,  instead  of  the  former  limit  of  twenty 
miles.  These  boundary  marks  were  ordered  to  be  set 
up  on  turnpike  and  public  roads,  beside  canals,  inland 
navigations,  and  railways,  and  are  frequently  encoun- 
tered by  the  cyclist  and  pedestrian,  to  whom  their 
purpose  is  not  a  little  mysterious. 

The  duty  on  coals  entering  London  amounted  in  1885 
to  no  less  than  £449,343,  and  on  wines  to  £8,488. 
By  far  the  greater  part  of  these  amounts  was,  of  course, 
collected  on  the  railways  and  in  the  i:)ort  of  London. 
Originally  imposed  for  the  maintenance  of  London 
orphans,  the  wine  dues  became,  like  the  coal  duties, 
great  sources  of  income,  by  which  many  notable 
London  improvements,  among  them  the  Victoria 
Embankment,  have  been  carried  out. 


DARTFORD  51 


XIII 


Dartford,  to  which  wc  now  come,  is  a  queer  Httle 
town,  planted  in  a  profound  hollow,  through  which 
runs  its  wealth-giving  Darent.  Mills  and  factories 
meet  the  eye  at  every  turn.  Not  smoking,  grimy 
factories  of  the  kinds  that  blast  the  Midland  counties, 
but  cleanly-looking  boarded  structures  for  the  most 
part,  own  brothers  to  flour-mills  in  outward  aspect  ; 
places  where  paper  is  manufactured,  and  nowadays 
drugs  and  chemicals.  Dartford  is  industrial  to-day, 
but  there  are  old-fashioned  nooks,  and  some  of  the 
street-names  are  intriguing  :  "  Bullace  Lane  "  and 
"  Overy  Street,"'  for  example.  Few  people  nowadays 
knoAV  what  is  a  "  bullace,"  It  is,  or  was,  a  small  wild 
plum,  of  the  damson  kind. 

And  here  is  the  traditional  home  of  paper-making 
in  England,  for  it  was  in  Dartford,  in  the  reign  of 
Good  Queen  Bess,  that  John  Spielman  (majesty, 
in  the  person  of  Gloriana's  successor,  James  the  First, 
knighted  him  for  it  in  1605)  introduced  the  art  of 
paper-making  to  these  shores.  What  induced  that 
man  of  gold  and  jewels  and  precious  stones  (he  was 
jeweller  to  Her  Majesty)  to  take  up  paper-making,  I  do 
not  know  ;  but  he  made  a  very  good  thing  of  it, 
commercially  speaking,  and  no  wonder,  Avhen  he  had 
sole  license  during  ten  years  for  collecting  rags  for 
making  his  paper  withal.  Besides  introducing  the 
manufacture  of  paper,  Sir  John  Spielman  added  the 
lime-tree  to  our  parks  and  gardens,  for  he  brought 
over  with  him  from  his  native  place,  Lindau,  in 
Germany,  two  slips  from  some  U7iter  den  linden  or 
another,  and  planted  them  in  front  of  his  Dartford 
home,  where  they  flourished  and  became  the  progenitors 
of  all  the  limes  in  England. 

If  you  step  into  the  quaint  old  church  of  Dartford, 
you  will  see,  as  soon  as  your  eyes  become  accustomed 
to  the  gloom,  the  tomb  of  Sir  John  Spielman  and  his 


52  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

wife,  with  their  effigies,  properly  carved,  painted  and 
gilt,  while  in  various  parts  of  the  church  may  be 
found  what  is  said  to  be  his  crest,  the  fool's  cap,  which 


ARMS    OF   SPIELMAN   A^D   HIS   FIEST    WIFE. 

he  used  as  a  water-mark  on  a  particular  size  of  paper. 
"  Foolscap  "  paper  derives  its  name  from  that  water- 
mark ;  and  thus,  though  the  term  now  indicates  a  size, 
it  was  originally  a  trade-mark.  The  mark  may  have 
been  derived,  not  from  any  crest,  but  from  the  long 
cap  worn  by  the  figure  on  his  wife's  shield  of  arms  ; 
although  it  was  greatly  changed  in  the  process.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  fool's  cap  water- 
mark occurred  on  paper  made  in  Germany  in  1472. 


THE   SPIELMANS  53 

The  presence  of  the  badge  in  the  church  shows  that 
the  paper-maker  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the 
reparation  of  the  building. 

In  1858  an  association  styling  themselves  the  "  Legal 
Society  of  Paper  Makers,"  of  whom  I  know  nothing, 
restored  Spielman's  tomb.  The  strange  heraldic 
coat-of-arms  of  Spielman  will  be  noticed.  It  is,  and 
looks,  German,  and  is  of  an  extravagant  nature  that 
would  utterly  discompose  an  English  herald. 
Spielman's  coat  exhibits  a  blue  serpent  with  a  red  crest, 
standing  on  his  tail  on  a  gold  background,  between  six 
golden  lions  on  a  red  field,  the  whole  of  this  singular 
device  based  on  a  green  mount.  His  wife's  arms, 
impaled  with  his  own,  are  a  man  clothed  in  a  long  black 
gown,  with  a  long  cap,  holding  in  his  hand  an  olive 
branch,  and  standing  on  a  red  mount  inverted.  The 
crest  is  :  a  savage,  wreathed  about  the  temples  and 
loins  with  ivy.  Motto  :  Arte  et  fortuna.  The  epitaph 
is  in  German.  Spielman's  first  wife  died  in  1607. 
In  1609  he  married  again,  and  deceased  in  1626, 
leaving  by  the  second  wife  three  sons  and  one 
daughter. 

The  fortunes  of  the  Spielmans  were  short-lived. 
His  second  wife  was  living  in  1646,  but  seems  to  have 
had  little  interest  in  the  business,  which  about  1686  was 
in  possession  of  a  Mr.  Blackwell.  Meanwhile  the 
Spielman  family  had  declined  to  poverty,  and  in  1690 
"  goody  Spielman,"  widow  of  his  grandson  George, 
was  in  receipt  of  Is.  6d.  weekly  relief  ;  and  in  1696  the 
wife  of  a  John  Spielman  was  receiving  2s.  The 
Spielman  paper  mill  stood  where  the  gas-mantle  factory 
of  Curtis  and  Harvey  is  now  found. 

There  is  a  curious  sundial  actually  in  the  church  ; 
oddly  placed  on  a  stone  foundation  on  the  splayed  sill  of 
the  south-east  window.  It  is  dated  1820,  and  records 
the  hours  only  from  2  p.m.  to  7  p.m. 

A  brass  to  John  Donkin  (1782-1846)  shows  liim  with 
head  and  shoulders.  The  inscription  states  it  was  placed 
here  because  it  was  not  considered  proper  that  one 


54 


THE  DOVER  ROAD 


who   had   placed   ancient   men   and   times   on   record 
should  himself  be  forgotten. 

We  may  be  thankful  that  Spielman  did  no  more  to 
the  church,  for,  had  he  rebuilt  it,  we  should  have  lost 
one  of  the  finest  and  most  picturesque  churches  on  the 


OT^I>:t4^ 


■^^^^^^i^S^^^^ 


DARTFORD   CHURCH. 

Dover  Road,  whose  tall  tower,  severely  unornamental, 
with  clock  oddly  placed  on  one  side,  is  such  a  pro- 
minent feature  of  Dartford.  Gundulf,  that  famous 
architect-bishop  of  Rochester,  to  whom  Rochester 
Keep,  Dover  Castle,  the  White  Tower  of  the  Tower  of 
London,  portions  of  Rochester  Cathedral,  and  a  number 
of  other  buildings,  civil,  ecclesiastical  and  military,  are 
ascribed  with  more  or  less  show  of  authority,  is  supposed 
to  have  built  Dartford  tower,  not  so  much  for  religious 
as  for  defensive  uses.  For  hereby  runs  the  Darent 
across  the  road,  and  no  bridge  s])anncd  the  ford  when 
Gundulf  s  tower  was  first  built.     It  therefore  guarded 


THE   "BULL"  55 

the  passage  until  the  neiohbouring  hermit,  who  Hved 
in  a  fine  damp  eell  by  the  riverside,  sueeeeded  in 
collecting  enough  money  Avherewith  to  build  a  bridge 
whose  successor  forms  an  excellent  leaning-stock  on 
Sundays  to  the  British  workman  waiting  anxiously  for 
the  public-houses  to  open. 

There  is  in  the  church  a  small  thirteenth  century 
lancet  window  in  the  west  end  wall  of  the  north  aisle, 
which  is  pointed  out  as  the  window  of  the  cell  occupied 
by  the  hermit  who  tended  the  ford.  It  commanded 
the  road  ;  and  no  doubt  the  hermit  was  often  knocked 
up  at  night  by  travellers  desiring  to  be  guided  over  the 
river.  In  1903  a  charming  picture  in  stained  glass  was 
added,  "  The  Hermit  of  the  Ford,"  showing  a  bearded 
and  hooded  man  holding  up  a  lantern.  The  ford  was 
not  superseded  until  1461,  when  the  first  bridge  was 
built.  This  remained  until  the  present  bridge  replaced 
it,  in  1754.  On  that  occasion,  the  churchyard  on  the 
south  side  of  the  church  was  curtailed,  for  widening 
the  road,  and  an  angle  of  the  church  itself  was  in  1792 
shaved  off  for  the  footpath,  as  can  be  seen  to  this  day. 

The  old  inns  of  Dartford  are  very  numerous.  Most  of 
them,  unfortunately,  have  been  cut  up  into  small  beer- 
houses and  tenements  since  the  coaches  were  run  off  the 
road  by  steam,  but  one  fine  old  galleried  inn,  the  "  Bull," 
remains  to  show  what  the  coachinoj  inns  of  lono^  ago 
were  like.  The  courtyard  is  now  roofed-in  with  glass, 
and  the  little  bedrooms  behind  the  carved  balusters  of 
the  gallery  are  largely  given  up  to  spiders  and  lumber. 
But,  fortunately  for  those  who  care  to  see  what  an  old 
galleried  inn  was  like,  the  changes  here  have  consisted 
only  of  additions  instead,  as  is  only  too  usual,  of 
destruction.  There  is  a  curious  detail,  too,  about  the 
"  Bull,"  and  that  is  the  whimsical  position  of  its  sign 
in  a  place  where  ninety  out  of  a  hundred  people  never 
see  it.  The  "  bull  in  a  china-shop  "  is  proverbial, 
but  a  bull  among  the  chimney-pots  is  something  quite 
out  of  the  common.  It  is  here,  though,  that  the 
effigy  of  a  great  black  bull  may  be  seen,  reared  up 


56 


THE  DOVER  ROAD 


aloft  in  a  place  between  the  constellations  and  the 
beasts  of  the  field. 

There  is  one  modern  incident  in  connection  with 
the  "  Bull  "  at  Dartford  which  shows  how  inflamed 
were  the  passions  of  the  workinfj  class  in  favour  of 
Georcfe  the  Fourth's  silly  and  indiscreet  wife,  and  this 


THE  "  BULL  "  INX,  DARTFORD. 


incident  happened  while  the  monarch  was  changing 
horses  here.  It  was  a  journeyman  currier  who  showed 
his  sympathy  with  Queen  Caroline,  and  he  did  so  by 
thrusting  his  head  in  at  the  carriage  window,  and 
roaring  in  the  face  of  startled  majesty,  "  You  are  a 
murderer  !  "  which  can  be  taken  neither  as  a  compli- 
ment nor  a  statement  of  fact — unless,  indeed,  we  agree 
with  that  mathematically  inclined  cynic  who  held  that 
a  "  fact  "  was  a  lie  and  a  half. 

Pastor  Moritz,  in  his  account  of  a  seven  weeks'  tour 


WAT   TYLER  57 

in  England,  tells  us  how  he  passed  through  Dartford. 
He  was  by  no  means  a  distinguished  person,  but  what 
he  has  to  say  of  his  travels  is  interesting,  as  contributing 
to  show  how  others  see  us.  He  came  into  England  by 
way  of  the  Thames,  May  31,  1782,  and  landed  (he  says) 
just  below  Dartford — probably  at  Greenhithe — to  which 
place  he  walked  in  company  with  some  others,  and  there 
breakfasted.  He  was  fresh  from  the  dreary,  sandy 
^lark  of  Brandenburg,  and  this  fair  county  of  Kent 
delighted  him  hugely.  At  Dartford  he  saw,  for  the 
first  time,  an  P^nglish  soldier.  That  rol^ust  Tommj^ 
struck  him  with  admiration,  both  for  the  sake  of 
his  red  coat  and  his  martial  bearing.  "  Here,  too, 
I  first  saw  "  (says  he)  ("  what  I  deemed  a  true  English 
sight)  two  boys  boxing  in  the  street."  The  party 
separated  at  Dartford,  and,  taking  two  post-chaises 
at  the  "  Bull,"  drove  to  London,  the  Pastor  "  stunned," 
as  it  were,  by  a  constant  rapid  succession  of  interesting 
objects,  arriving  at  Greenwich  nearly  in  a  state  of 
stupefaction. 

Dartford  will  ever  live  in  history  as  being  the 
starting-point  of  Wat  the  Tyler's  rebellion  of  1381. 
Tradition  places  the  scene  of  Wat's  murderous  attack 
on  the  tax-gatherer  opposite  the  "  Bull,"  where  once 
was  Dartford  Green.  The  Green  has  long  since  gone, 
but  the  story  never  stales  of  how  the  Tyler  dashed  out 
the  tax-gatherer's  brains  with  his  hammer.  It  is,  for 
one  thing,  a  tale  that  appeals  strongly  to  an  over-taxed 
community,  sinking  under  burdens  imposed  chiefly 
for  the  support  of  imperial  and  local  bureaucracy  ; 
and  I  fear  that  if  some  modern  tax-collector  met  a 
similar  fate,  many  worthy  people,  not  ordinarily 
bloodthirsty,  would  say,  "  Serve  him  right  !  " 

The  particular  impost  which  caused  the  trouble 
five  hundred  years  ago  was  the  odious  Poll-tax,  a 
hateful  burden  that  had  already  caused  wide  discontent 
throughout  England,  and  needed  only  a  more  than 
usually  unpleasant  incident  to  cause  ill  feelings  to  break 
out    in    ill    deeds.     That    incident    was    not    lacking. 


58  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

At  Dartford,  one  of  the  collectors  had  demanded  the 
tax  for  a  youniv  girl,  daughter  of  he  who  is  known  to 
history  as  Wat  Tyler.  Her  mother  maintained  that 
she  was  under  the  age  required  by  the  statute.  The 
tax-collector  grew  insolent  and  overbearing,  and,  it 
seems,  was  proceeding  to  a  delicate  investigation — like 
that  which  procured  Mr.  W.  T.  Stead  three  months' 
imprisonment  some  years  ago — when  the  Tyler,  who 
had  just  returned  from  work,  killed  him  with  a  stroke 
from  his  hammer. 

How  Wat  the  Tyler  was  appointed  by  popular 
acclamation  leader  of  the  Commons  in  Kent  ;  how, 
at  the  head  of  a  hundred  thousand  insurgents,  he 
marched  to  Blackheath,  are  matters  rather  for  the 
history  of  England  than  for  this  causerie  along  the 
Dover  Road. 


XIV 

The  old  coachmen  had  an  exciting  time  of  it  when 
either  entering  or  leaving  Dartford.  They  skidded 
down  West  Hill,  when  coming  from  London,  to  the 
imminent  danger  of  their  necks  and  those  of  their 
passengers,  and  they  painfully  climbed  the  East  Hill, 
on  their  way  out  of  the  tovm.  toward  Dover.  When 
several  accidents  had  occurred  to  prove  how  hazardous 
to  life  and  property  were  these  roads,  the  turnpike- 
trustmongers  reduced  their  steepness  by  cutting 
through  the  hill-tops.  This  was  about  1820. 
Although  the  roads  were  thus  lowered,  they  still  have 
a  remarkably  abrupt  rise  and  fall,  and  the  traveller 
in  leaving  the  town  for  Dover  can  gain  from  halfway 
up  the  slope  of  the  East  Hill  quite  an  extended  view 
over  Dartford  roof-tops.  He,  however,  remains  to 
sketch  at  peril  of  some  inconvenience,  for  the  tramps 
who  frequent  Dartford  take  a  quite  embarrassing 
interest  in  art. 

Somewhere  at  this  end  of  the  town  stood  the  Chantry 


MARTYRS 


59 


of  St.  Edmund  the  Martyr,  a  halting-place  at  which 
j^ilgrims  on  their  way  to  Canterbury  stopped  to  pray 
and  to  kiss  the  usual  relics.  The  site  was  probably 
where  the  Dartford  Cemeter}^  now  stands  beside  the 
road,  on  the  border  of  what  is  now  called  Dartford 
Brent,  a  wide  expanse  of  common  land  known  in 
other  times  as  Brent,  or  Burnt  Heath.  This  place 
came  very  near  to  being  the  site  of  a  battle  between 


DARTFORB   BRIDGE. 


the  Yorkists  and  the  Lancastrians,  for  here  it  was 
that  the  rival  armies  first  confronted  one  another  ; 
but,  instead  of  coming  to  blows,  their  leaders  held  a 
parley  ;  and  so,  fair  words  on  their  lips,  but  with  deceit 
in  their  hearts,  they  went  up  to  London.  Many  years 
later,  on  July  19,  1555,  to  be  precise,  Dartford  Brent 
reappears  in  history  as  the  place  on  which  three 
Protestant  martyrs,  Christopher  Wade,  Margaret 
Pollen,  and  Nicholas  Hall,  were  burnt  at  the  stake, 
and  since  then  the  annals  of  the  place  have  been  quite 
uninteresting.  The  gilt-crested  spire  of  the  memorial 
to  them  peers  up  on  the  skyline  of  the  road-cutting,  on 


60  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

the  way  up  to  the  Brent.  It  stands  in  the  old  cemetery, 
on  the  left. 

Donkin,  the  historian  of  Dartford,  wrote  in  1844  : — 
"  On  the  Brent  are  the  outlines  of  the  '  Deserter's 
Grave,'  cut  in  the  turf,  formerly  frequented  by  the 
scholars  of  Hall  Place  School  :  the  sod  of  which  is  still 
continued  to  be  cut  away  by  the  country  people  in 
memory  of  the  unknown,  traditionally  said  to  have  been 
shot  in  the  adjoining  pit." 

Some  light  on  this  tradition  is  shed  by  an  item  in  the 
churchwardens'  accounts  :— 

1679.     Payed  the  coroner  for  selling  on  a  soldier 

that  hanged  himself      ]3s.  (V/. 

Payd  lor  a  stake  to  drive  through  him 0.?.  6rf. 

Drink  for  the  Jury Is    ed. 

Here  the  road  branches — the  Dover  Road  to  the  left, 
the  Roman  Watling  Street  to  the  right  ;  although,  the 
Roman  road  being  older  and  itself  based  on  an 
immeasurably  more  ancient  British  trackway,  it  would 
be  more  fitting  to  say  that  it  is  the  existing  Dover  Road 
which  branches  off  from  the  parent  trunk  road.  From 
this  point  of  departure  on  the  Heath,  until  at  the  north 
end  of  Strood  High  Street  the  ways  again  come  to  a 
meeting,  over  eleven  miles  of  the  original  route  have 
been  abandoned  for  what  in  mediaeval  times  proved  to 
be  the  more  convenient  route  round  by  the  waterside 
at  Greenhithe  and  Gravesend. 

But  although  not  for  many  centuries  have  these 
eleven  miles  or  so  of  abandoned  Roman  way  been  in  use 
as  a  through  route,  they  are  not  all  lost.  The  first  three 
miles  across  the  Heath  form  a  good  local  road,  which 
then  turns  off  to  the  right,  leaving  the  Watling  Street 
to  climb  the  hill  of  Swanscombe,  steeply  up,  as  a 
tangled  lane  amid  the  dense  woods.  It  is  a  very 
considerable  elevation.  Here  and  there  the  footpath 
deviates  from  the  original  Roman  line,  and  the  ridges, 
banks  and  hollows  of  it  can  occasionally  be  glimpsed 
amid  the  undergrowth  ;  but  in  any  case  it  seems 
evident  that  the  Watling  Street  in  these  eleven  miles 


WATLING   STREET  61 

was  not  straight,  but  re-aligned  in  some  four  limbs  or 
individually  straight  stretches,  partly  to  avoid  going- 
over  the  extreme  crest  of  Swanscombe  Hill.  On  the 
shoulder  of  that  hill  there  was  at  the  time  of  the  road 
being  made  or  remodelled  by  the  Romans  a  British 
village,  established  inland  here  away  from  the  Thames 
estuary  probably  as  being  a  safer  place  than  any 
settlement  by  the  riverside. 

Here,  on  the  slope  of  the  hill,  the  Watling  Street  is 
cut  through  by  the  vastly  deep  and  broad  excavation 
in  the  chalk  made  by  the  activities  of  the  Associated 
Portland  Cement  Manufacturers.  The  construction  of 
it  may  even  thus  be  studied  in  section. 

Below,  in  the  levels  of  Springhead,  Avhere  a  lane  takes 
up  the  line  of  the  ancient  road,  there  may  have  been 
that  Roman  station  called  Vagniacce  ;  although  it  may 
possibly  have  been  by  the  waterside  at  Northfleet  or 
Southfleet,  for  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the 
Romans  themselves  had  no  lesser  riverside  route  along 
the  line  of  the  present  Dover  Road.  However,  to 
lay  down  a  dogma  upon  so  uncertain  a  matter  as  the 
Roman  road-system  in  Britain  proves  to  be  would  not 
commend  itself  to  those  best  qualified  by  study  to 
judge. 

From  Springhead  the  Watling  Street  continued 
through  Cobham  Park,  and  so  at  length  to  a  junction 
with  the  Dover  Road,  as  already  noted,  at  Strood. 

IMeanwhile,  the  more  or  less  modern  highway  goes  on 
through  a  dusty  district  where  the  builder  is  contending 
with  the  country,  and,  judging  from  appearances,  he 
seems  likely  to  get  the  best  of  it.  All  around  are 
glimpses  of  the  Heath,  and  problematical-looking 
settlements  of  houses  and  institutions  are  grouped 
together  on  the  sky-line,  with  weird,  bottle-like  towers, 
extravagantly  grotesque,  like  the  architecture  of  a 
nightmare,  or  "  Ahce  in  Wonderland."  The  City  of 
London  Lunatic  Asylum  is  here  beside  the  road  ; 
penitentiaries  and  their  like  are  grouped  about  ; 
a  huge  black  windmill  stands  awfully  on  the  Brent ; 


62  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

while  everywhere  are  puddles,  bricks,  old  boots,  old 
hats,  and  fragments  of  umbrellas.  Dartford  Brent 
is  a  singular  place. 

At  the  old  hamlet  of  John's  Hole,  just  past  here, 
called  often  in  coaching  days,  "  Jack-in-the-Hole," 
was  one  of  the  Dover  Road  turnpikes.  The  old 
toll-house  still  remains  beside  the  way.  To  this 
succeeds,  at  a  distance  of  three  quarters  of  a  mile, 
the  melancholy  roadside  settlement  of  Horns  Cross, 
where  a  post-office,  two  inns,  and  a  blasted  oak  look 
from  one  side  of  the  road,  across  great  fields  of  barley, 
to  the  broad  Thames,  crowded  with  shipping,  below. 

Stone  Church,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
interesting  in  Kent,  stands  on  a  hill-top,  a  short 
distance  from  the  left-hand  side  of  the  road,  and 
commands  a  wide  \'iew  of  the  Thames.  To  architects 
and  lovers  of  architecture  it  is  remarkable  on  account 
of  the  striking  similarity  its  rich  details  bear  to  those 
of  Westminster  Abbey,  and  it  is  generally  considered 
that  the  architect  of  the  one  designed  the  other. 
This  is  the  more  remarkable  since  the  Abbey,  with 
this  exception  of  Stone  Church,  stands  alone  in 
England  as  a  beautiful  and  peculiarly  personal  example 
of  Gothic  thirteenth-century  architecture  as  practised 
in  France.  The  architect  of  Westminster  Abbey 
must  have  been  of  French  nationality  ;  and  so  curiously 
similar,  in  little,  are  not  only  the  details  of  both  church 
and  Abbey,  but  also  the  varieties  of  stone  of  which  they 
are  built,  that  they  are  most  unlikely  to  have  been 
the  work  of  different  men. 

Greenhithe  lies  off  the  road  to  the  left  hand,  and 
fronts  on  to  the  Thames.  The  road,  all  the  way 
hence  to  Northfleet,  is  enclosed  by  high  walls  with  tall 
factory-chimneys  on  either  side  ;  or  passes  between 
long  rows  of  recent  cottages  alternating  with  cabbage- 
fields  in  the  last  stage  of  agricultural  exhaustion. 
Docks  ;  huge  and  ancient  chalk-pits  ;  great  tanks  of 
lime  and  whitening,  and  brickfields  are  everywhere 
about,  for  Greenhithe  and  Northfleet  are,  and  have 


THE   QUARRIES  63 

been  for  many  years,  the  chief  places  of  a  great  export 
trade  in  flints,  chalk,  and  lime.  The  flints  are  sent 
into  Derbyshire,  and  even  to  China,  where  they  are 
used  in  the  making  of  porcelain  ;  and  many  thousands 
of  tons  are  shipped  annually.  The  excavation  of  chalk 
and  flints  during  so  long  a  period  has  left  its  mark — a 
very  deep  and  ineffaceable  mark,  too — upon  this  part 
of  the  road,  and,  to  a  stranger,  the  appearance  presented 
by  the  scarred  and  deeply  quarried  countryside  is  wild 
and  wonderful.  Spaces  of  many  acres  have  been 
quarried  to  a  depth,  in  some  places,  of  over  a  hundred 
and  fifty  feet,  and  many  of  these  great  pits  have  been 
abandoned  for  centuries,  accumulating  in  that  time  a 
large  and  luxuriant  growth  of  trees  and  bushes. 
Others  are  still  being  extended,  and  present  a  busy 
scene  with  men  in  white  duck,  corduroy,  or  canvas 
working  clothes  cutting  away  the  chalk  or  loading  it 
into  the  long  lines  of  trucks  that  run  on  tramAvays  down 
to  the  water's  edge.  Not  the  least  remarkable  things 
in  these  busy  places  are  the  great  bluffs  of  chalk  left 
islanded  amid  the  deepest  quarries,  and  reaching  to 
the  original  level  of  the  land.  They  rise  abruptly 
from  the  quarry  floors,  are  generally  quite  inaccessible, 
and  have  been  left  thus  by  the  quarrymen,  as  con- 
taining an  inferior  quality  of  chalk,  mixed  with  sand 
and  gravel,  which  is  not  worth  their  while  to  remove. 
In  midst  of  scenery  of  this  description,  and  sur- 
rounded by  shops  and  modern  houses,  stands  Northfleet 
Church,  beside  the  highway.  It  is  a  large  Gothic 
building  of  the  Decorated  period,  and  has  been  much 
patched  and  repaired  at  different  times  without 
having  been  actually  "  restored."  There  are  some 
mildly  interesting  brasses  in  the  chancel ;  but  the 
massive  western  embattled  tower  is  of  greatest  interest 
to  the  student  of  other  times,  for  it  was  built,  like 
many  of  the  church  towers  in  the  Welsh  marches  and 
along  the  Scots  borders,  chiefly  as  a  means  of  defence. 
The  enemies  who  were  thus  to  be  guarded  against  at 
Northfleet  were  firstly  Saxon  pirates,  then  the  fierce 


64  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  faithless  Danes,  and  (much  later)  the  French. 
This  defensible  tower  at  Northfleet  was  largely  rebuilt 
in  1628,  but  a  part  of  it  belongs  to  the  end  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  it  even  retains  fragments  of 
an  earlier  building,  contemporary  with  the  terrible 
Sea-rovers  who  sailed  up  the  estuary  of  the  Thames, 
burning  and  destroying  everything  as  they  passed. 

A  significant  sign  of  the  quasi-military  uses  of 
this  extremely  interesting  tower  is  the  tall  stone 
external  staircase  that  runs  up  its  northern  face  from 
the  churchyard  to  the  first-floor  level.  The  small 
doorway  that  opens  at  the  head  of  this  staircase  into 
the  first  floor  was  originally  the  only  entrance  to  the 
tower,  and  before  the  churcli  could  be  finally  taken  the 
enemy  would  have  had  to  storm  these  stairs,  exposed  to 
a  fire  of  cloth-yard  shafts  from  arrow-slits,  and  of 
heavy  stones  cast  down  upon  them  from  the  roof. 


XV 

Northfleet  adjoins,  and  is  now  continuous  with, 
Gravesend.  It  is  a  busy  place,  engaged  in  the 
excavation  of  chalk  and  flints,  and  in  ship-building. 
Here,  too,  were  "  Rosherville  Gardens,"  or  shortly, 
"  Rosherville."  A  suburb  of  that  name  is  here  now. 
but  the  Rosherville  of  the  Early  and  Middle  Victorians 
is  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  the  place  has  been  sold  to 
an  oil  company. 

Jeremiah  Rosher  was  the  inventor  and  sponsor  of 
those  once-famed  Gardens.  It  was  so  far  back  as 
the  1830's  that  he  conceived  the  grand  idea  of  building 
a  new  towii  between  Northfleet  and  Gravesend,  on  an 
estate  he  owned  here,  beside  the  Thames.  The  idea 
remained  an  idea  only,  for  although  a  pier  was  built 
and  the  Gardens  formed,  Rosher  never  lived  to  see  his 
"  ville,"  in  the  sense  of  being  a  town.  But  his  Gardens 
were  a  hugely-compensating  success.     It  is  not  given 


WATERCRESS  65 

to  many  to  make  a  success  of  a  hole  (unless  the  hole 
is  a  mine),  and  the  site  of  that  celebrated  Cockney  resort 
was,  and  is,  nothing  else  ;  being  in  fact  one  of  the 
oldest  and  largest  of  the  chalk-quarries,  excavated 
to  a  depth  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  some 
parts. 

There  a  curious  kind  of  rusticity  was  tempered  with 
an  equally  curious  urban  flavour  ;  there  the  succulent 
shrimp  and  the  modest  watercress  ("  Tea  ninepence  ; 
srimps  and  watercreases,  one  shilling  "),  were  supple- 
mented romantically  by  the  strains  of  husky  bands. 
There  art  was  represented  by  broken-nosed  plaster 
statues  of  Ceres  and  a  variety  of  other  heathen 
goddesses,  some  supporting  gas-lamps  in  sawdusty  bars 
and  restaurants  ;  others  gracing  lawns  and  flower-beds. 
To  those  who  delighted  in  plaster  statues  grown 
decrepit  and  minus  a  leg  or  an  arm,  like  so  many 
neo-classic  Chelsea  pensioners,  Rosherville  was  ideal. 

"  Where  to  spend  a  happy  day,"  as  the  advertise- 
ments used  to  invite — "  Rosherville."  The  watercress 
consumed  there,  and  at  the  other  popular  places  near 
by,  came  from  Springhead,  which  will  be  found  in  the 
country  at  the  back  of  Gravesend.  In  1907  died  the 
last  survivinor  dauojhter  of  the  man  who  "  invented  " 
watercress  as  an  article  of  food.  It  was  about  1815 
that  William  Bradbery,  of  S^^ringhead,  began  to 
cultivate  from  a  green  weed  that  grew  in  the  ditches 
this  favourite  addition  to  tea-tables. 

He  cultivated  with  care,  and  laid  out  extensive  beds, 
then,  when  he  had  a  marketable  crop,  sold  it  locally. 
It  soon  became  a  famous  table  dainty,  and  nothing 
would  satisfy  him  but  the  patronage  of  London.  He 
filled  an  old  tea-chest  with  cress,  and,  with  this  on  his 
back,  trudged  off  to  the  metropolis,  a  score  or  more 
miles  away.  The  sample  was  satisfactory,  and  he 
quickly  developed  a  London  trade. 

Bradbery  (it  is  said)  when  he  was  building  up  his 
London  connection,  paid  a  vocalist  to  go  at  night  from 
one  place  of  entertainment  to  another,  singing  a  song  in 


66  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

praise  of  the  famous  brown  cress  from  the  waters  of 
Springhead. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  Bradbery  made  a  fortune  by 
cultivating  his  cress  on  the  extended  area.  He  seized 
an  opportunity  where  another  man  would  not  have  seen 
one. 

Watercress  is  now  cultivated  largely,  and  in  numerous 
districts.  It  is  known,  botanically,  as  nasturtium 
officinale. 

Electric  tramcars  now  rush  and  rattle  through 
Northfleet  and  Rosherville,  and  no  one  contemplates 
journeying  to  these  scenes  with  the  object  of  spending 
a  "  happy  da}^"  The  great  group  of  semi-ecclesiastical 
looking  buildings  on  the  left  is  "  Huggens'  College." 
Almshouses  continue  to  be  built,  for  the  fountain  of 
benevolence  is  not  yet  dried  up.  It  was  in  1847  that 
this  foundation  came  into  existence,  pursuant  to  the 
will  of  John  Huggens  (born  1776),  who  was  a  barge- 
owner  and  corn-merchant  of  Sittingbourne.  Lookinor 
upon  a  world  rather  astonishingly  full  of  almshouses  for 
people  of  humble  birth,  he  conceived  the  somewhat 
original  idea  of  founding  what,  with  extreme  delicacy, 
he  termed  a  "  College  "  for  gentlemen  reduced  to  poor 
circumstances.  The  establishment,  strictly  secluded 
behind  enclosing  walls,  in  well-wooded  grounds,  houses 
fifty  collegians.  Huggens  himself,  in  stony  effigy,  is 
seen  over  the  gateway,  seated  in  a  frockcoat  and  an 
uncomfortable  attitude,  and  displaying  a  scroll  or  the 
charter  of  his  "  College."  The  bountiful  gentleman  is 
sadly  weatherworn,  for  the  factory  fumes  of  this 
industrial  district  have  wrought  havoc  with  the 
Portland  stone  from  which  he  is  sculptured.  Huggens 
was  wise  among  the  generation  of  benefactors  :  he 
founded  his  charity  in  his  own  lifetime,  and  personally 
supervised  it.  He  died  in  1865,  and  his  body  lies  in 
Northfleet  churchyard. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  Gravesend,  noting  that  in 
1787  the  slip  road  between  the  "  Leather  Bottle  "  at 
Northfleet  and  the  beginnings  of  Chalk,  two  miles  in 


GRAVESEND  67 

length,  was  made.  It  Avould,  in  the  language  of  to-day, 
applied  to  incandescent  gas-mantle  burners  and  to 
avoiding  roads  alike,  be  called  a  "  by-pass." 

Gravesend  was  at  one  time  a  place  remarkable  alike 
for  its  tilt-boats  and  its  waterside  taverns.  The  one 
involved  the  other,  for  the  boats  brought  travellers 
here  from  London,  and  here,  in  the  days  of  bad  roads 
and  worse  conveyances,  they  judged  it  prudent  to  stay 
overnight,  commencing  their  journey  to  Rochester  the 
following  morning.  To  the  town  of  Gravesend 
belonged  the  monopoly  of  conveying  passengers  to  and 
from  London  by  water,  and  it  was  not  until  steamboats 
began  to  ply  up  and  down  the  reaches  of  the  Thames 
that  this  privilege  became  obsolete.  Thus  it  will  be 
seen  that,  besides  being  a  place  of  call  for  ships,  either 
outward  bound  or  proceeding  home,  Gravesend  was  in 
receipt  of  much  local  traffic.  The  railway  has, 
naturally,  taken  away  a  large  proportion  of  this,  but 
has  brought  it  back,  tenfold,  in  the  shape  of  holiday 
trippers,  and  the  continued  growth  of  the  town  is 
sufficient  evidence  of  its  prosperity.  One  first  hears  of 
Gravesend  in  the  pages  of  Domesday  Book,  where  it  is 
called  "  Gravesham  "  ;  but  the  difficulty  of  distinctly 
pronouncing  the  name  led,  centuries  ago,  to  the 
corrupted  termination  of  "  end  "  being  adopted,  first 
in  speech,  and,  by  insensible  degrees,  in  writing.  It  has 
an  interesting  history,  commencing  from  the  time  when 
the  compilers  of  Domesday  Book  found  only  a  "  hyhte," 
or  landing-place,  here,  and  progressing  through  the 
centuries  with  records  of  growth,  and  burnings  by 
the  French  ;  with  tales  of  Cabot's  sailing  hence  in 
1553,  followed  by  Frobisher  in  1576,  to  the  incorpora- 
tion of  the  town  in  1568,  and  the  flight  of  James  the 
Second,  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  later. 

Gravesend  was  not,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  a  model 
town.  Its  inhabitants  paved,  lighted,  and  cleansed 
their  streets,  accordingly  as  individual  preferences, 
industry,  or  laziness  dictated.  Spouts,  pipes,  and 
projecting  eaves  poured  dirty  water  on  pedestrians  who 


68  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

were  rash  enough  to  walk  those  streets  in  rainy  weather, 
and  people  threw  away  out  of  window  anything  they 
wished  to  get  rid  of,  quite  regardless  of  who  might  be 
passing  underneath  ;  and  so,  whether  fine  or  wet,  those 
who  picked  their  way  carefully  along  the  unpaved 
thoroughfares,  stood  an  excellent  chance  of  being 
drenched  with  something  unpleasant.  An  open  gutter 
ran  down  the  middle  of  the  street,  full  of  rotting  refuse  ; 
every  tradesman  hung  out  signs  which  sometimes  fell 
down  and  killed  people,  and  in  the  night,  when  the 
wind  blew  strong,  a  concert  of  squeaking  music  filled, 
with  sounds  not  the  most  pleasant,  the  ears  of  people 
who  wanted  to  go  to  sleep. 

Things  were  but  little  less  mediaeval  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  although  the  trade  and 
importance  of  Gravesend  had  greatly  increased. 
Troubles  arose  then  on  account  of  the  disorderly 
hackmen,  "  foreigners  and  strangers  " — any  one  not  a 
freeman  or  a  burgess  was  a  "  foreigner  " — who  plied 
between  Gravesend  and  Rochester,  and  took  away  the 
custom  that  belonged  of  right  to  members  of  Gravesend 
guilds.  Two  years  later  the  Corporation  of  Gravesend 
was  distinctly  Roundhead  in  its  sympathies,  for  in  1649 
we  find  the  town  mace  being  altered,  the  Royal  arms 
removed,  and  those  of  the  Commonwealth  substituted, 
at  a  cost  of  £23  10^.  Od.  In  1660,  things  wore  a  very 
different  complexion,  for  in  that  year  the  Gravesend 
people  welcomed  Charles  the  Second  with  every 
demonstration  of  joy.  They  had  the  mace  restored 
to  its  former  condition  at  a  cost,  this  time,  of 
£17  105.  Od.,  and  allowed  the  mayor  and  another 
£2  5s.  7d.  for  going  up  to  London  to  see  that  the  work 
was  done  properly.  They  paid  £3  10^.  Od.  for  painting 
the  king's  arms  ;  14^.  to  one  John  Phettiplace  for 
"  trumpeters  and  wigs  "  ;  and  5s.  to  Will  Charley 
"  for  sounding  about  the  country."  Having  done  this, 
they  all  got  gloriously  drunk  at  a  total  cost  of 
£12  15s.  8d.,  of  which  sum  £10  7^.  8d.  was  for  wine, 
and  £2  8^.  Od.  for  beer. 


70  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

It  was,  indeed,  during  this  latter  half  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  that  Gravesend  experienced  one  of  its 
great  periods  of  prosperity  ;  and  so  the  loyalty  was 
well  rewarded.  Of  this  date  are  many  of  the  fine  old 
red-brick  mansions  in  the  older  part  of  the  town, 
together  with  the  Admiralty  House,  official  residence 
of  the  Duke  of  York  when  Lord  High  Admiral.  To 
Grav^esend  he  came  as  James  the  Second,  a  prisoner. 

Embarking  from  Whitehall,  on  December  18,  1688, 
he  reached  here  as  late  as  nine  o'clock  at  night.  The 
next  morning  he  was  conducted  hence  to  Rochester 
in  the  charge  of  a  hundred  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's 
Dutch  Guards,  and  a  melancholy  journey  it  must 
have  been  for  him,  if  his  memory  took  him  back  to 
the  time  when,  twenty-eight  years  before,  he  came  up 
the  road  with  his  brothers,  Charles  the  Second  and 
the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  happily  returning  from  exile. 

To  Gravesend  came  Royal  and  distinguished 
travellers  on  their  way  from  Dover  to  London,  and 
hence  they  embarked  for  the  City  and  Westminster, 
escorted,  if  they  were  sufficiently  Royal  or  distinguished 
by  the  Lord  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  the  City  Guilds, 
and  fitly  conducted  in  a  long  procession  of  stately 
barges  by  this  most  impressive  entrance  to  the  capital 
of  England.  And  even  ordinary  travellers  preferred 
this  route.  For  two  reasons  :  the  river-road  was  much 
more  expeditious  than  the  highway  in  those  pre- 
MacAdamite  daj^s,  and  by  taking  it  they  escaped  the 
too-pressing  attentions  that  awaited  them  on  Shooter's 
Hill  and  Blackheath  at  the  hands  of  Captains  Gibbet 
and  Pick-Purse. 

XVI 

Many  of  these  distinguished  travellers  on  this  old 
highway  have  left  written  accounts  of  their  doings, 
and  very  interesting  readings  they  make.  Foremost 
among  the  "  distinguished  "  company  was  Marshal  de 
Bassompierre.     He  came  to  England  in  1626,  on  an 


OLD-TIME  TRAVELLERS  71 

Embassy  from  the  King  of  France,  and  arrived  at 
Dover  on  the  2nd  of  October.  There  he  stayed  to 
recruit,  for  the  sea,  as  usual,  had  been  unkind,  until 
Sunday,  the  4th,  departing  thence  on  that  day  for 
"  Cantorbery,"  where  he  slept  the  night,  going  on  the 
Monday  as  far  as  "  Sitimborne,"  and  on  Tuesday  to 
"  Rocheter  "  and  Gravesend,  where  he  was  met  by  the 
Queen's  barge.  Three  months  later,  and  he  was 
returning  home.  On  December  1st  he  began  his  fare- 
wells at  the  ^ourt  of  Saint  James's,  and  bade  adieu  to, 
amongst  others,  such  fearful  wild  fowl  as  the  Earl  of 
Suffolc  and  the  Duke  of  Boukinkam  ;  this  last  the 
dissolute  "  Steenie  " — none  other  !  On  the  5th, 
imagine  him  at  Dover  with  an  equipage  of  five  hundred 
persons  shivering  on  the  brink  of  the  Channel,  and 
stormbound  there  for  fourteen  days  at  a  cost  of  14,000 
crowns. 

This  imposing  company  embarked  at  last,  and,  after 
braving  winds  and  sea  for  a  whole  day,  were  compelled 
to  put  back  again.  When  they  did  finally  set  off, 
they  were  five  days  crossing  to  Calais,  and  it  was  found 
necessary  to  jettison  the  Ambassador's  two  carriages 
en  route,  in  which  was,  alas  !  40,000  francs'  worth  of 
clothes.  Also  this  unfortunate  diplomat  lost  twenty- 
nine  horses,  which  died  of  thirst  on  the  voyage. 

Another  French  traveller.  Monsieur  Jouvin  de 
Rochefort,  greatly  daring,  visited  our  shores  in  1670. 
He  took  the  ordinary  coach  for  "  Gravesine,"  in  order, 
as  he  says,  to  embark  thence  for  London,  passing  on 
his  way  from  Canterbury,  Arburtoon,  Baten,  and 
Asbery  ;  Grinsrit,  Sitingborn,  Nieuvetoon,  and  Renem* 
and  coming  to  Rochester  through  a  strange  place  called 
Schatenne,  which  I  don't  find  an3^where  on  the  map, 
but  suppose  he  means  Chatham.  All  along  the  road 
he  remarked  a  number  of  high  poles,  on  the  top  of 
which  were  small  kettles,  in  which  fires  were  lighted  to 
warn  the  countryside  of  the  robbers  who  would  come  in 

*  He  meant  Harbledown,  Boughton,  and  Ospringe  :  Green-street,  Sitting 
bourne,  Xewington,  and  Rainham. 


72  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

bands  and  plunder  the  villages,  were  it  not  for  the 
courage  of  the  villagers,  who  formed  themselves  into 
guards.  These  poles  were  about  a  mile  distant  from 
each  other,  and  to  every  one  there  was  a  small  hut  for 
the  person  whose  business  it  was  to  keep  the  beacons 
burning.  "  God  be  praised,"  though,  he  reached 
"  Gravesine  "  safely  ! 

Samuel  de  Sorbiere,  Historiographer  Royal  to  the 
King  of  France,  visited  our  shores  in  1663.  The 
normal  passage  from  Calais  was  three  hours,  but  on 
this  occasion  seven  hours  were  consumed  in  crossing, 
and  although  the  weather  was  very  fair,  the  "  usual 
Disorder  which  those  who  are  not  accustomed  to  the 
sea  are  subject  to  " — but  no  matter  !  To  make 
matters  worse,  contempt  and  affronts  were  put  upon 
him  in  Dover  streets  by  some  sons  of  Belial  in  the 
shape  of  boys  who  ran  after  him  shouting,  "  a  Monsieur, 
a  Monsieur,"  and  who,  when  they  had  retired  to  a  safe 
distance,  proceeded  to  the  extremely  impolite  depth  of 
calling  him  a  "  French  dog,"  "  which,"  says  M.  de 
Sorbiere,  sweepingly,  ''  is  the  epithet  they  give  us  in 
England." 

Our  traveller  journej^ed  to  London  by  wagon, 
rather  than  take  a  post-chaise  or  even  the  stage- 
coach ;  an  extremely  undignified  thing  for  an 
Historiographer  Royal  to  do,  one  would  think.  But 
then,  'twas  the  way  to  note  the  strange  customs  of 
these  English  !  The  wagon  was  drawn  by  six  horses, 
one  before  another,  and  beside  them  walked  the 
wagoner  clothed  in  black  and  appointed  in  all  things 
like  another  Saint  George.  He  had  a  brave  mounteero 
on  his  head,  and  was  a  merry  fellow  who  fancied  he 
made  a  figure,  and  seemed  mightily  pleased  with 
himself.  Arrived  at  Gravesend,  our  traveller,  for 
greater  expedition,  took  boat  to  London,  and  so  an  end 
of  him,  so  far,  at  least,  as  these  pages  are  concerned. 

But  this  little  crowd  of  scribbling  foreigners  who 
visited  England  and  wrote  accounts  of  their  travels 
in  these  islands  before  the  locomotive  was  dreamed 


M.  GROSLEY  73 

of,  had  much  better  opportunities  of  catching 
impressions  than  the  railway  train  affords.  They 
came  up  this  way  to  London,  as  slowly  as  the  poet's 
spring  ;  and,  as  a  rule,  they  used  their  opportunities 
very  well.  For  instance,  here  is  the  admirable 
M.  Grosley,  a  kindly  Frenchman  who  came  over  from 
Boulogne  in  1765.  He  gives  a  most  interesting 
account  of  his  journey  along  the  Dover  Road  on 
the  11th  April.  He  embarked  upon  Captain  Meriton's 
packet,  which  arrived,  in  compan}^  Avith  a  prodigious 
number  of  other  ships,  three  hours  before  time,  off 
Dover.  Here  they  had  to  anchor  for  the  tide  to  serve 
their  landing,  and  the  boisterous  winds  drove  several 
vessels  ashore,  while  Captain  Meriton's  passengers 
resigned  themselves  to  death.  When  at  length  the}^ 
landed,  half  dead,  an  Englishwoman  with  her  very 
amiable  daughter  and  a  tall  old  Irishman,  who  pre- 
tended to  be  an  officer  (and  who  doubtless  "  had  a  way 
with  him  "),  landed  with  our  traveller,  and  contrived 
that  he  should  pay  part  of  their  fare,  the  only  trick 
played  upon  M.  Grosley  (I  am  pleased  to  say)  during  his 
stay  in  England.  The  customs  officers  looked  like 
beggars,  but  treated  this  foreigner  like  a  gentleman, 
as  indeed  we  may  suppose  he  was,  for  he  belonged  to 
the  Academy. 

However,  a  crown  was  levied  on  passing  his  luggage 
by  an  innkeeper  who  held  the  droit  cle  viscomte.  All  the 
inns  were  crowded  with  the  miserable  travellers  just 
landed,  and  he  with  whom  we  are  particularly  concerned 
found  it  necessary  to  go  into  the  kitchen  of  his  inn  and 
take  off,  with  his  own  hands,  one  of  the  tranches  de  bceuf 
grilling  on  the  coals.  After  this  exploit,  he  cautiously 
went  to  bed  at  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  for  there 
were  not  enough  beds  to  go  round,  and  possession  was 
ever  nine  points  of  the  laAV  !  At  three  in  the  morning 
he  was  called  upon  to  turn  out  in  favour  of  a  new 
arrival  ;  but,  notwithstanding  all  the  rout  they  made, 
he  held  to  his  four-poster  until  five,  when  he  was 
turned  out  and  the  game  of  Box  and  Cox  commenced. 


74  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

The  sole  inhabitants  of  Dover  (says  our  traveller) 
were  sailors,  ships'  captains,  and  innkeepers.  The 
height  of  the  triumphal  arches,  on  which  the  vast 
signboards  of  the  inns  spanned  the  narrow  streets, 
and  the  ridiculous  magnificence  of  the  ornaments  that 
headed  them,  were  wonderful  as  compared  with  the 
little  post-boys,  children  of  twelve  and  thirteen  years 
of  age,  who  were  starting  every  minute  in  sole  charge 
of  post-chaises.  The  great  multitude  of  travellers 
with  which  Dover  was  crowded  afforded  a  reason 
for  dispensing  with  a  police  regulation  which  forbade 
public  conveyances  to  travel  on  Sundays,  and  on  that 
day  he  set  out  with  seven  other  passengers  in  two 
carriages  called  ("  called,"  you  notice,  like  that  street 
in  Jerusalem  that  was  "  called  "  straight)  "  flying 
machines."  There  were  six  horses  to  a  machine,  and 
they  covered  the  distance  to  London  in  one  day  for 
one  guinea  each  person  ;  passengers'  servants  carried 
outside  at  half-price.  The  coachmen,  who  were  most 
kindly  disposed  towards  their  horses,  carried  whips, 
certainly,  but  they  were  no  more  in  their  hands  than 
the  fan  is  in  winter  in  the  hand  of  a  lady  ;  they  only 
served  to  make  a  show  with,  for  their  horses  scarcely 
ever  felt  them,  so  great  was  the  tenderness  of  the 
English  coachman  with  his  cattle. 

But  see  the  peculiar  advantages  of  travelling  on 
Sunday.  There  were  no  excisemen  anywhere  on  duty, 
and  even  the  highwaymen  had  ceased  their  labours 
during  the  night.  The  only  knights  of  the  road  our 
travellers  encountered  were  dangling  from  gibbets  by 
the  wayside  in  all  the  glories  of  periwigs  and  full-skirted 
coats.  Unfortunately,  the  pace  was  marred  by  the 
frequent  stoppages  made  to  unload  the  brandy-kegs 
at  the  roadside  inns  from  the  boots  of  the  coaches, 
where  they  had  been  stowed  away  in  the  absence  of 
the  gangers. 

Upon  their  way  to  Canterbury,  the  travellers,  and 
our  foreigner  in  particular,  had  for  some  time  perceived 
that  they  were  no  longer  in  France,  and  when  at  length 


FOREIGNERS   ON  ENGLAND  75 

they  reached  that  bourne  of  pilgrims  they  were  still 
further  impressed  with  that  fact  by  observing  a  fat  man, 
who  was  just  arisen  from  bed,  standing  at  a  bay 
windoAV  during  the  whole  time  the  flying  machines 
changed  their  Pegasuses  ;  and,  as  they  were  unexpected 
the  delay  was  considerable.  But  all  this  while  the  fat 
man  stood  there  in  his  night-shirt,  with  a  velvet  cap 
on  his  head,  contemplating  them  with  folded  arms  and 
knitted  brow,  and  with  an  expression  which  (in  France) 
was  to  be  seen  only  on  the  faces  of  them  that  had  just 
buried  their  dearest  friends.  Also,  the  "  young 
persons  "  of  both  sexes  stood  and  stared — not  to  mince 
matters — like  stuck  pigs. 

The  country  which  they  travelled  through  from 
Dover  to  London  was  (so  our  traveller  thought)  in 
general  a  bad  mixture  of  sand  and  chalk.  They 
skirted  some  lovely  woods  as  well  furnished  as  the 
best-stocked  forests  of  France — alas  !  where  are  those 
Avoods  now  ? — and  presently  passed  over  commons 
covered  with  heath  and  stray  broom,  very  high  and 
flourishing  all  the  year  round.  Those  wild  shrubs 
were  left  to  the  use  of  the  poor  of  the  several  different 
parishes,  but  their  vigour  and  thickness  gave  reason 
to  conjecture  that  there  were  but  few  poor  people 
in  those  parishes.  The  best  lands  were  then,  as  now, 
laid  out  in  hop-gardens. 

The  wayside  inns  appealed  strongly  to  our  traveller. 
They  Avere  given,  whether  in  town  or  country,  to  the 
making  of  large  accounts,  but  then  see  how  rich  was 
the  English  lord  who,  as  a  class,  frequented  them. 
Anyway,  they  were  possessed  of  a  cleanliness  far 
beyond  that  to  be  found  in  the  majority  of  the  best 
private  houses  in  France.  There  was  only  one  inn 
on  the  road  from  Paris  to  Boulogne  to  be  mentioned 
in  the  same  breath  with  the  English  houses,  and 
that  was  one  at  Montreuil,  frequented  by  English 
travellers. 

Between  Canterbury  and  Rochester  the  coaches 
encountered  an  obstacle  which  savours  rather  of  Don 


76  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

Quixote's  adventures  than  of  Sunday  travelling  in 
this  unromantic  country.  This  was  nothing  less 
than  a  windmill  which  the  country-folk,  taking 
advantage  of  that  usually  coachless  day,  were  moving 
entire.  Less  fiery  than  the  Don,  the  travellers  out- 
flanked the  gigantic  obstacle  by  dragging  the  coaches 
into  the  field  beside  the  road.  And  of  that  road, 
M.  Grosley  has  to  say  that  it  was  excellent ;  covered 
with  powdered  flints,  and  well  kept,  in  spite  of  the 
exemption  from  forced  labour  which  the  countrymen 
enjoyed  ;  and  here  he  quotes  what  Aurelius  Victor 
has  to  say  of  the  Emperor  Vespasian's  vast  roadworks 
in  Britain. 

The  roadways  had  not  long  been  in  this  enviable 
condition  ;  only,  indeed,  so  recently  as  the  days  of 
George  the  Second  had  they  been  rescued  from  the 
bad  state  into  which  they  had  been  suffered  to  fall 
during  the  civil  wars,  and,  generally  speaking,  the 
English  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  art  of  road- 
making. 

The  repairing  of  the  high-roads  was  at  the  expense 
of  them  that  used  them.  Neither  rank  nor  dignity 
was  exempted  from  the  payment  ot  tolls  ;  the  king 
himself  was  subject  to  them,  and  the  turnpike  would 
have  been  shut  against  his  equipage  if  none  of  his 
officers  paid  the  money  before  passing  by. 

These  high-roads  had  all  along  them  a  little  raised 
bank,  two  or  three  feet  broad,  with  a  row  of  wooden 
posts  whose  tops  were  whitewashed  so  that  the  coach- 
men should  see  them  at  night.  This  was  for  the 
conveniency  of  foot-passengers.  In  places  where  the 
road  was  too  narrow  to  admit  of  this  arrangement, 
the  proprietors  of  lands  adjoining  were  obliged  to 
give  passage  through  their  fields,  which  were  all 
enclosed  with  tall  hedges  or  with  strong  hurdles  about 
four  feet  high,  over  which  passengers  leapt  or  climbed. 
Custom  had  so  habituated  the  village  girls  to  this 
exercise  that  they  'acquitted  themselves  in  it  with  a 
peculiar   grace   and   agility.     The   great   attention   of 


MILTON  77 

the  English  to  the  conveniency  of  foot-passengers 
had  several  causes.  Firstly,  they  set  the  highest 
value  upon  the  lives  of  their  fellow-creatures,  and  in 
that  peculiar  circumstance  they  sacrificed  to  pleasure 
and  conveniency.  Secondly,  their  laws  were  not 
exclusively  made  and  executed  by  persons  who  rode 
in  their  chariots.  Thirdly,  as  the  English  carriages 
moved  as  swiftly  in  the  country  as  slowly  in  the 
town,  the  meeting  with  persons  who  were  so  foolish 
or  so  ill-geared  as  to  walk  a-foot  would  have  been 
disastrous  to  those  wayfarers  ;  and  in  so  democratic 
a  country  as  this  the  chariot-riders  would  have  had 
a  bad  time  in  store  for  them  for  so  small  a  matter 
as  playing,  as  it  were,  the  secular  Juggernaut  with 
pedestrians. 

Eventually  this  moralising  Frenchman  reached 
London  through  Rochester,  which  place  was  one 
ong  street  inhabited  solely  by  ships'  carpenters  and 
dockyard  men.  At  Greenwich,  the  shores  of  Thames 
loomed  upon  his  enraptured  gaze,  agreeably  confounded 
with  long  lines  of  trees  and  the  masts  of  ships,  and  then 
came  delightful  London,  and  that  haven  where  he 
would  be — ah  !  you  guess  it,  do  you  not  ?  It  was 
Leicester  Fields,  le  Squarr  de  Leicesterre  of  a  later 
seneration  of  Frenchmen. 


XVII 

Having  thus  disposed  of  this  company  of  scribbling 
foreigners,  I  will  get  on  to  Milton-next-Gravesend, 
which  immediately  adjoins  the  town ;  especially 
will  I  do  so  because,  when  the  old  waterside  lanes 
have  been  explored,  little  remains  to  see  besides 
Gordon's  statue  and  the  little  cottage  where  he  used 
to  live.  The  high-road  is  not  at  all  interesting,  unless 
indeed  a  Jubilee  clock- tower  and  a  number  of  private 
houses   of  the   Regent's   Park   order   of  architecture 


78  THE    DOVER   ROAD 

may  be  considered  to  lend  a  charm  ot  it.  Just  beyond 
these  houses  comes  Milton  :  a  school,  a  church, 
and  a  public-house  standing  next  one  another.  The 
church  belongs  to  the  Decorated  period,  and  has  a 
tower  built  of  flints,  stone,  and  chalk.  During  the  last 
century  the  churchwardens  had  the  repairing  of  the 
nave  roof  under  consideration,  and,  in  order  to  save 
twenty  pounds  on  an  estimate,  they  decided  to  remove 
the  battlements,  and  to  have  a  slated  roof,  spanning 
nave  and  aisles,  and  ending  in  eaves.  The  thing  was 
done,  against  the  wish  of  the  Vicar  and  with  the 
approval  of  the  then  Bishop  of  Rochester,  and  all  who 
pass  this  way  can  see  how  barbarous  was  the  deed. 
It  had  not  even  the  merit  of  economy,  for,  by  the  time 
the  work  was  completed,  it  had  cost  the  churchwardens 
several  hundreds  of  pounds  more  than  had  been 
anticipated. 

"  Trifle  not,  your  time's  but  short,"  says  a  very 
elaborate  and  complicated  sundial  over  the  south 
porch,  looking  down  upon  the  road  ;  and,  taking  the 
hint,  we  will  proceed  at  once  from  Milton  Church  to 
the  public-house  next  door.  But  not  for  carnal  joys  ; 
oh  no  !  Only  in  the  interests  of  this  book  will  we 
make  such  a  sudden  diversion  ;  for,  at  the  rear  of  the 
house,  on  the  old  bowling-green,  is  an  interesting 
memorial  of  one  of  the  jolly  fellows  Avho  once  upon 
a  time  gathered  here  on  summer  evenings  and  played  a 
game  of  bowls  when  business  in  the  neighbouring  town 
of  Gravesend  was  done  for  the  day. 

to  the  memory 

Of  Mr.  Alderman  Nynn, 

An  lioneft  Man,  and  an  Excellent  Bowler. 

Ciiique  est  sua  Fama. 

Full  forty  long  Years  was  the  Alderman  feen, 
The  delight  of  each  Bowler,  and  King  of  this  Greene. 
As  long  he  remember'd  his  Art  and  his  Name, 
Whofe  hand  was  unerring,  unrival'd  whofe  Fame. 
His  Bias  was  good,  and  he  always  was  found 
To  go  the  right  way  and  to  take  enough  ground. 
The  Jack  to  the  uttermoft  verge  he  would  fend 
For  the  Alderman  lov'd  a  full  length  at  each  End. 


DENTON  79 

Now  mourn  ev'ry  Eye  that  hath  feeii  him  difplay 
The  Arts  of  the  Game,  and  the  Wiles  of  his  play  ; 
For  the  great  Bowler,  Death,  at  one  critical  Cast 
Has  ended  his  length,  and  clofe  rubb'd  him  at  laft. 

F.  W.  pofuit,  MDCCT.XXVI. 

And  having  duly  noted  this  elegy  of  a  truly  admirable 
man,  we  may  leave  Milton,  pausing  but  to  look  down 
upon  the  estuary  of  the  Thames,  where  the  great  liners 
pass  to  and  fro  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  world, 
and  also  to  consider  the  humours  of  a  hundred  years 
ago,  when,  as  now,  Milton  was  in  the  corporate 
jurisdiction  of  Gravesend,  and  w^hen  it  sufficed  both  to 
employ  one  watchman  between  them.  This  w^atchman 
was  also  Common  Crier,  and  w^as  supported,  not  by  a 
salary,  but  (like  a  hospital)  by  voluntary  contributions. 
And  he  did  not  do  badly  by  the  grateful  Gravesenders, 
for  he  collected,  one  year  with  another,  £60,  w^hich, 
added  to  the  market-gardening  business  he  also 
carried  on,  must  have  made  quite  a  comfortable 
income. 

A  little  way  beyond  Milton,  w^here  the  road  curves 
round  to  the  right,  there  will  be  seen  on  the  left  an 
eighteenth-century  mansion,  standing  in  extensive 
grounds.  Immediately  wdthin  the  lodge-gates  is  what 
looks  like  a  small  church,  surrounded  by  trees.  It  is 
older  and  far  more  interesting  than  it  seems  to  be. 
Until  1901  it  was,  in  fact,  a  roofless  ruin  ;  but  it  was 
then  restored  by  Mr.  George  M.  Arnold,  who  then 
owned  Denton  Court,  the  name  of  the  house.  The 
church,  now  used  as  a  private  chapel  by  the  owner  of 
Denton  Court,  was  in  fact  Denton  Chapel,  the  place  of 
worship  of  the  parish  of  Denton,  which  was  ecclesias- 
tically separate  from  Milton  until  1879.  Denton  is  a 
place  so  small  that  few  maps  condescend  to  notice  it, 
but  it  is  an  ancient  place,  first  named  in  a.d.  950,  as 
"  Denetune,"  when  the  manor  w^as  given  by  one 
Byrhtric  to  the  Priory  of  St.  Andrew  at  Rochester, 
which  built  this  chapel  of  St.  Mary.  It  was  on  the 
dissolution  of  the  monasteries  in  the  time  of  Henry  the 
Eighth  that  it  fell  into  ruin. 


80 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


The  chapel  is.  of  Hterary  interest,  for  it  is  the  original 
of  Barham's  "  Ingoldsby  Abbe}^"  In  travelling 
between  Canterbury  and  London  by  coach,  Barham 
noticed  the  ruined  walls  standing  up,  silhouetted 
against  the  sky,  and  looking  far  more  important  than 


DENTON    CHAPEL. 

intrinsically  they  were  ;  for  this  was  then  a  cleared 
space,  the  new  road  near  by  having  in  1787  been  cut 
actually  through  the  little  churchyard. 

Commentators  in  various  editions  of  the  Ingoldsby 
Legends  have  stated  sceptically  "  the  remains  of 
Ingoldsby  Abbey  will  be  found — if  found  at  all — among 
the  '  Chateaux  en  Espagne.'  "  That  is  not  so  ;  for 
here  it  is.  Barham  himself,  in  a  note  to  the  legend 
"  The  Ingoldsby  Penance,"  remarks  the  ruins  are  "  still 
to  be  seen  by  the  side  of  the  high  Dover  road,  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  below  the  town  of  Gravesend." 


The  great  gate  Father  Thames  rolls  sun-bright  and  clear, 
Cobham  woods  to  the  right — on  the  opposite  shore 
Laindon  Hills  in  the  distance,  ten  miles  off,  or  more  ; 
Then  you've  Milton  and  Gravesend  behind — and  before 
You  can  see  almost  all  the  way  down  to  the  Nore. 


CHALK 


81 


In  Domesday  Book  Denton  is  written  "  Danitune," 
and  it  is  generally  held  that  the  name  comes  from  the 
raiding  Danes,  who  certainly  troubled  this  estuary  ; 
but  it  is  probalDly  "  Dene-town,"  the  place  in  the  vale  ; 
perhaps  in  contradistinction  to  Higham,  which  is  not 
far  off. 

Chalk  is  the  next  place  on  the  road,  and  Chalk 
is  quite  the  smallest  and  most  scattered  of  villages, 
beginning  at  the  summit  of  the  hill  leading  out  of 
^Milton  and  ending  at  Chalk  church,  which  stands  on 
a  hillock  retired  behind  a  clump  of  trees  nearly  a  mile 


JOE   GARGERY'S    FORGE. 

down  the  road,  and  far  aAvay  from  any  house.  All  the 
way  the  road  commands  long  reaches  of  the  Thames 
and  the  Essex  marshes,  and  on  summer  days  the  singing 
of  the  larks  high  in  air  above  the  open  fields  can  be 
heard. 

At  Chalk,  in  1836,  Charles  Dickens  rented  a  honey- 
moon cottage,  on  his  marriage  Avith  Catherine  Hogarth. 
Great  controversies  arose  some  years  ago,  following 
upon  what  is  said  to  be  a  wrong  identification  of  the 
place  with  a  residence  called  the  "  Manor  House  "  ; 
and  it  was  stated  that  the  real  dwelling  in  question  was 
the  weather-boarded  and  much  humbler  cottage  at  the 
fork  of  the  old  and  new  roads  between  Gravesend  and 
Northfleet,  still  standing,  and  with  a  commemorative 
tablet  on  it.     Opposite  is  "  Joe  Gargery's  Forge." 


82 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


Chalk  church  is  a  very  much  unrestored  building 
of  flint  and  rubble,  dating  from  the  thirteenth  century. 
Its  south  aisle  was  j)ulled  down  at  some  remote  period. 

There  still  remains,  and  in 
very  good  preservation, 
too,  a  singular  Early  English 
carving  over  the  western 
door  representing  a  grinning 
countryman  holding  an 
immense  flagon  in  his  two 
hands  and  gazing  upward 
towards  a  whimsically-con- 
torted figure  that  seems  to 
be  nearly  all  head  and 
teeth.  Between  the  two  is 
an  empty  tabernacle  which 
at  one  time  before  the 
destruction  of  ''  idolatrous 
statues  "  would  have  held 
a  figure  of  the  Virgin.  The 
two  remaining  figures  prob- 
ably illustrate  the  celebra- 
tion of  "  Church  ales,"  a 
yearly  festival  formerly 
common  to  all  English 
villages,  and  held  on  the 
day  sacred  to  the  particular 
saint  to  whom  the  church 
was  dedicated.  On  these 
occasions  there  was  used  to 
be  general  jollity  ;  feasting 
and  drinking ;  manly  sports, 
such  as  boxing,  wrestling, 
and  games  at  quarter-staff,  would  be  indulged  in,  and 
the  day  was  held  as  a  fair,  to  which  came  jugglers  and 
players  of  interludes  and  itinerant  vendors  from  far 
and  near.  The  Church,  of  course,  being  the  original 
occasion  of  the  merry-making,  looked  benignly 
upon    it,    and     provided    the     funds    for    the    malt 


ANCIENT    CARVING— CHALK. 


THE   "LORD   NELSON 


83 


from     which     the     so-called    "  Church     ales  "     were 
brewed. 

There  is  one  other  item  of  interest  at  Chalk,  and 
that  is  an  old  wayside  tavern,  the  "  Lord  Nelson," 
one  of  those  old  houses  that  occupied,  during  last 
century,   and  the   fir^t   quarter  of  the  nineteenth,   a 


SAILORS'   FOLLY.     (.After  Julius  C'cesar  Ibbet.oon). 

position  between  the  coaching  inn  and  the  mere  beer- 
house. This  type  of  tavern  is  still  very  largely 
represented  along  the  Dover  Road,  although  the  sailors 
who  chiefly  supported  them  are  no  longer  seen  tramping 
the  highways  between  the  seaports.  The}^  have, 
most  of  them,  little  arbours  and  trim  gardens  with 
skittle-  and  bowling-alleys,  and  here  the  sailor  would 
sit  and  drink,  spin  yarns,  or  play  at  bowls  ;    swearing 


84 


THE   DOVER  ROAD 


strange  oaths,  and  telling  of  many  a  hard-fought  fight. 
If  he  had  kindred  company,  there  would  be,  I  promise 
you,  a  riotous  time  ;  for  no  schoolboy  so  frolicsome  as 
Jack  ashore,  and  hard-won  wages  and  prize-money,  got 
at  the  cost  of  blood  and  wounds,  he  spent  like  water. 
Nothing  was  too  expensive  for  him,  nor,  indeed, 
expensive  enough,  and  if  he  was  sufficiently  fortunate  to 
leave  his  landing-place  with  any  money  at  all,  he  would 
very  likely  post  up  to  town  with  the  best  on  the  road. 


JACK    COME    HOME    AGAIX. 


holding,  very  rightly,  that  life  without  experiences 
was  not  worth  the  having.  And  of  experiences  he 
had  plenty.  He  lived  like  a  lord  so  long  as  his  money 
lasted,  and  when  he  went  afloat  again  he  was  shipped 
in  a  lordly  state  of  drunkenness  ;  but  once  the  anchor 
was  weighed  his  was  a  slave's  existence.  Not  that  any 
word  of  his  hardships  escaped  him  ;  he  took  them  as 
inseparable  from  a  seaman's  life  ;  and,  indeed,  once  the 
first  rapture  of  his  home-coming  was  over,  the  sea 
unfailingly  claimed  him  again.  And  when  ashore  all 
his  talk  was  of  battles  and  storms  ;  he  damned 
Bonaparte,  believed  that  one  Englishman  could  thrash 
three    "  darned    parley voos,"    despised    land-lubbers, 


i 


86  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  sang  "  Hearts  of  Oak  "  with  an  unction  that  was 
truh^  admirable.  His  faihnofs  were  onl}^  those  of  a 
free  and  noble  nature,  and  it  is  very  largely  owing 
to  his  qualities  of  courage  and  tenacity  that  England 
stands  where  she  is  to-day.  Let  us  not,  however, 
decry,  either  directly  or  by  implication,  the  sailors 
who  now  man  our  ships.  They  live  in  more  peaceful 
times,  and  have  neither  the  discomforts  nor  the 
hard  knocks  that  were  distributed  so  largel}^ 
years  ago  ;  but  they  ha^c  approved  themselves  no 
whit  less  stalwart  than  their  ancestors  who  wore 
pigtails,  fought  like  devils  ;  talked  of  Rodney, 
Nelson,  Trafalgar,  and  the  Nile,  and  finally  dis- 
appeared somewhere  about  the  time  of  the  Battle 
of  Navarino. 

It  was  for  the  delight  and  to  secure  the  custom  of 
these  very  full-blooded  heroes  that  these  old  taverns 
with  signs  so  nautical  and  bowling-greens  so  enticing 
were  planted  so  frequently  on  this  very  sea-salty  road, 
and  now  that  the  humblest  traveller  finds  it  cheaper  to 
pay  a  railway-fare  than  to  walk,  they  look,  many  of 
them,  not  a  little  forlorn.  As  for  the  "  Lord  Nelson," 
at  Chalk,  I  fear  it  lies  too  near  London  suburbs  to 
last  much  longer.  Already,  on  Bank  Holidays,  when 
the  Cockney  comes  to  Gravesend,  literally  in  his 
thousands,  riotous  parties  adventure  thus  far,  and 
dance  in  the  dusty  highwa^^  to  sounds  of  concertina 
and  penny  whistle.  Their  custom  will  doubtless 
enrich  the  place,  and  presently  a  gin-palace  will  be 
made  of  what  is  now  a  very  romantic  and  unusual 
inn,  grey  and  time-stained  ;  its  red  roof-tiles  thickly 
overgrown  with  moss  and  house-leek,  and  its  gables 
bent  and  bowed  with  years. 


XVIII 

There  is  little  to  see  or  remark  upon  in  the  three 
miles  between  Chalk  and  Gad's  Hill.     Two  old  roadside 


GAD'S   HILL  87 

inns,  each  claiming  to  be  a  "  half-way  house  "  ; 
a  lane  that  leads  off  to  the  right,  towards  the  village 
of  Shorne  ;  a  windmill,  without  its  sails,  standing  on 
the  brow  of  a  singular  hill  ;  these,  together  with  the 
great  numbers  of  men  and  women  working  in  the 
fields,  are  all  the  noticeable  features  of  the  road 
until  one  comes  up  the  long,  gradual  ascent  to  the 
top  of  Gad's  Hill. 

Gad's  Hill  is  at  first  distinctly  disappointing ; 
perhaps  all  places  of  pilgrimage  must  on  acquaintance 
be  necessarily  less  satisfactory  than  a  lively  fancy 
has  painted  them.  How  very  often,  indeed,  does  not 
one  exclaim  on  standing  before  world-famed  sites, 
''  Is  this  all  ?  " 

The  stranger  comes  unawares  upon  Gad's  Hill. 
The  ascent  is  so  gradual  that  he  is  quite  unprepared 
for  the  shock  that  awaits  him  when  he  comes  in  sight 
of  a  house  and  two  spreading  cedars  that  can  scarce 
be  other  than  Charles  Dickens'  home.  He  has  seen 
them  pictured  so  often  that  there  can  surely  be  no 

mistake  ;     and   yet He   feels   cheated.     Is   this, 

then,  the  famous  hill  where  travellers  were  wont  to  be 
robbed  ?  Is  this  the  place  referred  to  by  that 
seventeenth-century  robber  turned  litterateur,  John 
Clavell,  who,  in  his  "  Recantation  of  an  Ill-led  Life," 
speaks  so  magniloquently  of — 

Gad's  Hill,  and  those 
Red  tops  of  mountains,  where  good  people  lose 
Their  ill  kept  purses. 

Was  it  here,  then,  upon  this  paltry  pimple  of  a  hill 
that  Falstaff  and  Prince  Hal,  Poins  and  the  rest  of 
them,  robbed  the  merchants,  the  franklins,  and  the 
flea-bitten  carriers,  who,  Charles's  Wain  being  over 
the  chimneys  of  their  inn  at  Rochester,  set  out  early 
in  the  morning  for  London  ?  Was  this  the  spot 
where  Falstaff,  brave  amid  so  many  confederates, 
added  insult  to  injury  of  those  travellers  by  calling 
them   "  gorbellied   knaves  "   and   "  caterpillars,"   and 


88  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

where  Prince  Henry,  in  his  turn,  alluded  to  the  knight 
as  "  fat  guts  "  ?  Yes,  this  is  the  place,  but  how 
changed  from  then  !  To  see  Gad's  Hill  as  it  was  in 
those  times  it  would  be  necessary  to  sweep  away  the 
rows  of  mean  cottages  that  form  quite  a  hamlet  here, 
together  with  Gad's  Hill  Place,  the  hedges  and 
enclosures,  and  to  clothe  the  hillsides  with  dense 
woodlands,  coming  close  up  to,  and  overshadowing 
the  highway,  which  should  be  full  of  ruts  and  sloughs 
of  mud.  Then  we  should  have  some  sort  of  an  idea 
how  terrible  the  hill  could  be  o'nights  when  the  rogues* 
who  lurked  in  the  shadow  of  the  trees  pounced  upon 
rich  travellers,  and,  tricked  out  in 

vizards,  hoods,  disguise. 
Masks,  muzzles,  mufflers,  patches  on  their  eyes  ; 
Those  beards,  those  heads  of  liair,  and  that  great  wen 
Which  is  not  natural, 

relieved  them  of  their  gold. 

And  not  only  rogues  of  low  estate,  but  others  of 
birth  and  education,  pursued  this  hazardous  industry, 
so  that  Shakespeare,  when  he  made  the  Prince  of 
Wales  and  Sir  John  Falstaff  appear  as  highwaymen 
on  this  scene,  was  not  altogether  drawing  upon  his 
imagination.  Thus,  when  the  Danish  Ambassador 
was  set  upon  and  plundered  here  in  1656,  they  were 
not  poor  illiterates  who  sent  him  a  letter  the  next 
day  in  which  they  took  occasion  to  assure  him  that 
"  the  same  necessity  that  enforc't  ye  Tartars  to 
breake  ye  wall  of  China  compelled  them  to  wait  on 
him  at  Gad's  Hill."  But  travellers  did  not  always 
tamely  submit  to  be  robbed  and  cudgelled,  as  you 
shall  see  in  these  extracts  from  Gravesend  registers 
— "  1586,  September  29th  daye,  was  a  thief e  yt  was 
slayne,  buryed  ;  "  and,  again,  "  1590,  Marche,  the 
17th  dale,  was  a  theefe  yt  Avas  at  Gad'shill  wounded 
to  deathe,  called  Robert  Writs,  buried." 

Gad's  Hill  is  not  only  memorable  for  the  robberies 

*  "  Gad's,"  i.e.  "  rogues,"  Hill. 


MURDER  89 

committed  on  its  miry  ways.  Its  story  rises  to 
tragic  heights  with  the  murder,  on  the  night  of 
October  15,  1661,  of  no  less  a  person  than  a  foreign 
Prince,  Cossuma  Albertus,  Prince  of  Transylvania. 
This  unfortunate  Prince,  who  was  on  a  visit  to 
England  to  seek  aid  from  Charles  the  Second  against 
the  Germans,  was  approaching  Rochester,  apparently 
on  his  return  to  the  Continent,  when  his  coach  stuck 
fast  in  the  October  mud  of  Gad's  Hill.  He  had 
already  experienced  the  villainous  nature  of  our  high- 
ways, and  so,  knowing  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  proceed  further  that  evening,  he  resigned  himself 
to  sleeping  a  night  on  the  road.  Having  wrapped 
himself  up  as  warmly  as  possible,  he  fell  off  to  sleep, 
whereupon  his  coachman,  one  Isaac  Jacob,  a  Jew, 
took  his  sword  and  stabbed  him  to  the  heart,  and, 
calling  upon  the  footman,  this  precious  pair  completed 
the  tragedy  by  dragging  the  body  out  of  the  coach,  and, 
cutting  off  the  head,  flinging  the  mutilated  remains  in  a 
neighbouring  ditch. 

The  first  tidings  of  this  inhuman  murder  were 
brought  to  a  Rochester  physician,  who,  riding  past 
the  spot  some  days  afterwards,  was  horrified  by  his 
dog  bringing  him  a  human  arm  in  his  mouth.  Meanwhile 
the  murderers  had  possessed  themselves  of  the  Prince's 
clothes,  together  with  a  large  sum  of  money  he  had 
with  him,  and,  dragging  the  coach  out  of  the  ruts,  had 
driven  back  to  Greenhithe,  where  they  left  coach  and 
horses  to  be  called  for.  Not  long  afterwards,  they 
were  arrested  in  London,  and,  being  brought  before  the 
Lord  Mayor,  the  footman  made  a  full  confession. 
The  trial  took  place  at  Maidstone,  where  Isaac  Jacob, 
coachman,  and  Casimirus  Karsagi,  footman,  were 
sentenced  to  death,  the  first  being  hanged  in  chains  at 
the  scene  of  the  crime.  The  body  of  the  ill-fated 
Prince  of  Transylvania  was  buried  in  the  nave  of 
Rochester  Cathedral. 

Sixteen  years  later,  we  come  to  the  ex])loits  of  that 
ingenious     highwayman,     Master     Nicks,     who,     one 


90  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

morning  in  1676,  so  early  as  four  o'clock,  committed 
a  robbery  on  this  essentially  "  bad  eminence,"  upon 
the  person  of  a  gentleman,  who,  from  some  unexplained 
reason,  was  crossing  the  hill  at  that  unearthly  hour. 
This,  by  the  way,  seems  to  disprove  the  wisdom  of  the 
early  worm,  who,  to  be  caught,  must  of  necessity  be 
up  still  earlier  than  that  ornithological  Solon,  the  early 
bird.     'Tis  a  nice  point. 

However,  Master  Nicks,  w^ho  was  mounted  on  a  bay 
mare,  effectually  despoiled  the  traveller  and  rode  away, 
reaching  York  on  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day. 
Dismounting  there  at  an  inn,  he  changed  his  riding- 
clothes  and  repaired  to  the  bowling-green,  where  he 
found  the  Lord  Mayor  of  York  playing  bowls  with 
several  other  tradesmen.  The  artful  rogue,  in  order  to 
fix  himself,  the  date,  and  the  hour  in  that  magistrate's 
memory,  made  a  bet  with  him  upon  the  game,  took  an 
opportunity  to  ask  him  the  time,  and  by  some  means 
contrived  to  give  him  occasion  to  bear  in  mind  the  day 
of  the  month,  in  case  he  should  chance  to  be  arrested 
on  suspicion  of  the  affair.  Sure  enough,  he  was 
apprehended  some  time  later,  and  when  put  upon  his 
trial  the  jury  acquitted  him,  as  they  held  it  impossible 
for  a  man  to  be  at  two  places  so  remote  in  one  day. 
After  his  acquittal,  all  danger  being  past,  he  confessed 
the  truth  of  the  matter  to  the  judge,  already  doubtful 
of  the  jury's  wisdom,  and  the  affair  coming  to  the 
knowledge  of  Charles  the  Second,  his  Majesty  eke- 
named  this  speedy  road-agent  "  Swiftnicks."  This 
name  conceals  the  identity  of  John,  or  William, 
Nevison,  who  was  executed  on  Knavcsmire,  York,  in 
1685.  His  exploit  in  thus  riding  from  near  Rochester 
to  York  is  the  original  of  the  later,  inferior  and  wholly 
fictitious  story  of  Dick  Turpin's  ride  from  London  to 
York,  on  Black  Bess ;  an  exploit  never  performed 
by  him. 

One  presently  becomes  more  tolerant  of  Gad's  Hill, 
for,  coming  to  Charles  Dickens'  house  and  the  old 
"  Falstaff  "  inn,  almost  opposite,  there  opens  a  view 


MRS.    LYNN   LINTON  91 

over  the  surrounding  country  that  is  really  fine,  and 
the  road  goes  down,  too,  towards  Strood,  in  a  manner 
eminently  picturesque.  The  story  is  well  known  of 
how,  even  when  but  a  "  queer  small  boy,"  Dickens 
always  had  a  great  desire  to,  some  day,  be  the  owner 
of  the  place,  and  how  his  father,  who  would  take  him 
jiast  here  on  country  walks  from  Chatham,  told  him 
that  if  he  "  were  to  be  very  persevering,  and  were  to 
work  hard,"  he  might  some  day  come  to  live  in  it  ; 
but  it  is  not  equally  a  matter  of  common  knowledge 
that  the  house  had  been  also  the  object  of  an  equal 
affection,  years  before,  to  the  Reverend  Mr.  Lynn, 
father  of  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton,  who  tells  us  how  her  early 
years  were  spent  here,  and  how,  when  her  father  died, 
it  was  she  who  sold  the  estate  to  the  novelist.  She 
gives  also  a  most  picturesque  account  of  Gad's  Hill  in 
those  times.  The  coaches  were  still  running  when 
Mrs.  Lynn  Linton,  as  a  girl,  lived  here. 

"  Gad's  Hill  House  stands  a  little  way  back  from  the 
road.  The  grand  highway  between  London  and 
Dover,  not  to  speak  of  betAveen  Gravesend  and 
Rochester,  it  was  as  gay  as  an  approach  to  a  metropolis. 
Ninety-two  public  coaches  and  pleasure-vans  used  to 
pass  in  the  day,  not  counting  the  private  carriages  of 
the  grandees  posting  luxuriously  to  Dover  for  Paris  and 
the  grand  tour.  Soldiers  marching  or  riding  to  or  from 
Chatham  and  Gravesend,  to  embark  for  India,  or  on 
their  return  journey  home  ;  ships'  companies  paid  off 
that  morning,  and  cruising  past  the  gates,  shouting  and 
singing  and  comporting  themselves  in  a  generally 
terrifying  manner,  being,  for  the  most  part,  half-seas 
over,  and  a  trifle  beyond ;  gipsies  and  travelling 
tinkers  ;  sturdy  beggars  with  stumps  and  crutches  ; 
Savoyards  with  white  mice,  and  organ-men  with  a 
wonderful  wax  doll,  two-headed  and  superbly  dressed, 
in  front  of  their  machines  ;  chimney-sweepers,  with  a 
couple  of  shivering,  little,  half-naked  climbing  boys 
carrying  their  bags  and  brushes  ;  and  costermongers, 
whose  small,  flat  carts  were  drawn  by  big  dogs,  were 


92  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

also  among  the  accidents  and  circumstances  of  the  time. 
.  .  .  Old  Mr.  Weller*  was  a  real  person,  and  we 
knew  him.  He  was  '  Old  Chumley  '  in  the  flesh,  and 
drove  the  stage  daily  from  Rochester  to  London, 
and  back  again." 


GAD'S   HILL   PLACE.     RESIDEXCE    OF    CHARLES    DICKEXS. 

It  was  here,  then,  that  Dickens  lived  from  1856  to  his 
death,  on  June  9,  1870,  and  thus  Gad's  Hill  is,  for  many, 
doubly  a  place  of  pilgrimage.  And,  truly,  the  whole 
course  of  the  Dover  Road  is  rich  in  memories  of  him 
and  of  the  characters  he  drew  with  such  a  flow  of 
sentimentality  ;  and  sentiment  is  more  to  the  English- 
man than  is  generally  supposed.  Hence  that  amazing 
popularity  which  is  only  just  now  being  critically 
inquired  into,  weighed  and  appraised,  Dickens  was  a 
man  of  commanding  genius.  His  observation  was 
acute,  and  he  reproduced  with  so  photographic  a 
fidelity  the  life  and  times  of  his  early  years  that  the 
"  manners  and  customs  of  the  English,"  during  the 
first   third   of  the   nineteenth   century,   find   no   such 

*  One  ol  the  many  originals  of  "  Samivel's  father  "  put  forward.  One  was 
supposed  to  have  been  at  Bath,  another  at  Dorking  ;  and  others  still  have 
claims  to  have  originated  this  humorous  character. 


DICKENS  93 

luminous  exponent  as  he.  When,  if  indeed  ever,  the 
Pickwick  Papers  cease  to  amuse,  they  will  still  afford 
by  far  the  most  valuable  evidence  that  could  possibly 
exist  as  to  the  ways  and  thoughts,  the  social  life  and 
the  conditions  of  travel,  that  immediately  preceded 
the  railway  era.  Superficial  critics  may  hold  that  the 
most  humorous  book  of  the  century  is  but  a  succession 
of  scenes,  with  little  real  sequence  and  no  plot ;  they 
may  also  say  that  Mr.  Pickwick,  Messrs.  Tupman, 
Snodgrass,  Winkle,  and  the  rest  of  that  glorious 
company,  were  "  idiots,"  but  for  genuine  fun  and 
frolic  that  book  is  still  pre-eminent,  and  none  of  the 
"  new  humorists,"  with  their  theories  and  criticisms 
of  the  "  old  humour,"  have  approached  within  a 
continent  or  so  of  it.  Not  that  Dickens'  methods 
were  irreproachable.  It  was  his  pleasure  in  all  his 
books  to  give  his  characters  allusive  names  by  which 
you  were  supposed  to  recognise  their  attributes  at  once. 
It  is  thus  upon  the  stage,  in  pantomime  or  farce,  that 
the  clown's  painted  grin  and  the  low^-comedian's 
ill-fitting  clothes,  red  hair,  and  redder  nose,  proclaim 
their  qualities  before  a  word  is  spoken,  and  when 
Dickens  calls  a  pompous  fraud  "  Pecksniff,"  a  vulgar 
Cockney  clerk  "  Guppy,"  or  a  shifty,  irresponsible, 
resourceful  person  "  Swiveller,"  we  know  at  once, 
before  we  read  any  further,  pretty  much  what  their 
characters  will  be  like.  This,  of  course,  is  not  art  ;  it 
is  an  entirely  indefeasible  attempt  to  claim  your 
sympathies  or  excite  your  aversions  at  the  outset, 
independently  of  the  greater  or  less  success  with 
which  the  author  portrays  their  habits  afterwards. 
We  must,  however,  do  Dickens  the  justice  both  to 
allow  that  he  needed  no  such  adventitious  aids  to  the 
understanding  of  his  characters,  and  to  recognise  that 
this  kind  of  nomenclature  was  not  i^eculiarly  his  own, 
but  very  largely  the  literary  fashion  of  his  time. 

The  pranks  of  Falstaff  and  Prince  Hal,  whose  doings 
were  to  be  "  argument  for  a  week,  laughter  for  a  month, 
and  a  good  jest  for  ever,"  are  commemorated,  in  a 


9i 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


fashion,  by  a  large  roadside  inn,  the  "  Falstaff," 
standing  nearl}^  opposite  Gad's  Hill  Place,  the 
successor,  built  in  the  time  of  Queen  Anne,  of  a  lonely 
beerhouse,  the  resort  of  characters  more  than  question- 
able ;  more  than  kin  to  highwaymen,  and  much  less 
than  kind  to  unprotected  wayfarers. 

1/ 


THE    "  FALSTAFF,"   GAD'S    HILL. 


From  here  the  road  goes  steepl}^  all  the  way  to 
Strood,  over  Coach  and  Horses'  Hill,  and  through  a 
deep  cutting  made  by  the  Highway  Board  about  1830, 
in  order  to  ease  the  heavy  pull  up  from  Rochester  ; 
a  cutting  known  at  that  time  as  ''  Davies'  Straits," 
from  the  name  of  the  chairman  of  the  Board,  the 
Rev.  George  Davies.  The  view  here,  over  house-tops 
toward  the  Medway,  framed  in  on  either  side  by  this 
hollow  road,  is  particularly  fine,  and  I  think  I  cannot 
come  through  Strood  into  Rochester  without  quoting  a 
certain  lieutenant  who,  with  a  captain  and  an 
"  ancient  "  (by  which  last  we  understand  "  ensign  " 
to  be  meant),  travelled  in  these  parts  in  1635.     "  I  am 


STROOD  95 

to  passe,"  says  he,  "  to  Rochester,  and  in  the  midway 
I  fear'd  no  robbing,  although  I  passed  that  woody,  and 
high  old  robbing  Hill  (Gadds  Hill),  on  which  I  alighted, 
and  tooke  a  sweet  and  delightfull  prospect  of  that  faire 
streame,  with  her  pleasant  meads  she  glides  through." 
The  lieutenant's  description  is  delightful,  and  if  he 
drew  the  sword  to  such  good  purpose  as  he  wielded 
the  pen,  why,  I  think  he  must  have  been  a  warrior  of 
no  little  distinction.  He  says  nothing  of  Strood  ; 
and,  indeed,  I  think  Strood  has  through  the  centuries 
been  entreated  in  quite  a  shabby  and  inadequate 
manner.  The  reason  of  this,  of  course,  is  that  Strood 
is  over  the  water  and  suburban  to  Rochester  ;  a  kind  of 
poor  relation  so  to  speak,  and  treated  accordingly. 

But  the  place  is  old  and  historic,  and  celebrated 
not  only  for  the  great  fight  which  the  barons  made 
in  the  thirteenth  century  against  the  king,  when  they 
fought  their  way  across  the  bridge,  and,  taking 
possession  of  Rochester,  sacked  town,  castle,  and 
cathedral,  but  also  for  that  exploit  of  the  townsfolk 
who  cut  off  the  tail  of  one  of  Becket's  sumpter-mules, 
whereupon  that  wrathful  prelate  cursed  them,  and 
caused  them  and  their  descendants  to  go  with  tails  for 
ever.  Thus  the  story  which  accounts  for  the  county 
nickname  of  "  Kentish  long-tails,"  but  I  do  not  perceive 
that  the  Strood  folks  are  so  unusually  decorated. 
Perhaps  they  are  at  pains  to  hide  their  shame. 


XIX 

Strood,  too,  deserves  some  notice.  The  place-name 
has  been  thought  to  derive  from  strata,  "  the  street," 
standing  as  it  does  on  that  ancient  way,  the  Roman 
Watling  Street.  But,  in  the  recent  advance  in  the 
study  of  place-names,  it  is  held  to  be  from  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  "  strode  "  :    a  marshy  region. 

The  original  meaning  of  "  Watling  Street  "  is  never 


96  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

likely  to  be  determined  to  the  satisfaction  of  all 
antiquaries,  and  its  age  is  equally  a  contested  point. 
But  that  a  street  or  a  trackway  of  some  kind,  of  an 
identical  route  with  the  present  highway,  ran  between 
London  and  Dover  long  before  Caesar  landed  can 
scarce  be  matter  for  doubt.  That  the  Britons  were 
barbaric  and  unused  to  commerce  or  intercourse  with 
the  Continent  can  scarcely  be  supposed,  for  Britain 
was  the  Sacred  Island  of  the  Druidical  religion,  and 
to  it  came  the  youth  of  Gaul  for  instruction  at  the 
hands  of  those  high  priests  Avhose  Holy  of  Holies 
lay,  across  the  land,  in  remote  Anglesey.  Those 
priests  were  the  instructors,  both  in  religion  and 
secular  knowledge,  of  the  Gaulish  youth  ;  and,  outside 
the  civilisations  of  Greece  and  Rome,  Britain  was  even 
then  the  best  place  to  acquire  a  "  liberal  education." 
Up  the  rugged  trackway  of  the  Sarn  Gwyddelin  =  the 
Foreigners'  Road,  from  Dover  to  London,  and 
diagonally  across  the  island,  came  these  youths  ;  and 
down  it,  to  voyage  across  the  Channel,  and  to  take  part 
with  their  Gaulish  friends  in  any  fighting  that  might  be 
going,  went  those  tall  British  warriors  whose  strength 
and  fierceness  surprised  Ciesar  in  his  Gallic  War. 

Imports  and  exports,  too,  passed  along  this  rough 
way  ;  skins  and  gold,  British  hunting-dogs  and  slaves 
were  shipped  to  Gaul  and  Rome  by  merchants  who, 
to  keep  the  trade  unspoiled,  magnified  the  dangers 
of  the  sea-crossing  and  the  fierceness  of  the  people. 
Pottery,  glass-beads,  and  cutlery  they  imported  in 
return  ;  and  this  primitive  "  road  "  must  have  pre- 
sented a  busy  scene  long  before  it  could  ha\x  deserved 
the  actual  name. 

When  Cicsar,  eager  for  spoil  and  conquest,  marched 
across  country  from  Deal,  and  first  saw  the  Sarn 
Gwyddelin  from  the  summit  of  Barham  Downs,  it 
could  have  been  but  a  track,  never  built,  but  gradually 
brought  into  existence  by  the  tramping  of  students 
and  fighting-men,  and  widened  by  the  commerce  of 
those    exclusive    merchants.     Thus    it    remained    for 


WATLING   STREET  97 

at  lead  ninety-eight  years  longer  ;  rough,  full  of  holes, 
mires,  and  swamps,  and  crossed  by  many  streams. 
Caesar  came  and  went ;  and  not  until  Aulus  Plautius 
and  Claudius  had  overrun  Britain,  and  probably  not 
before  many  successive  Roman  governors  had  served 
here,  and  reduced  this  province  of  Britannia  Prima  to 
the  condition  of  a  settled  and  prosperous  colony,  was 
the  Foreigners'  Road  made  a  via  strata,  a  paved  Roman 
Military  Way. 

Its  date  might  be  anything  from  the  landing  of 
Aulus  Plautius,  in  a.d.  45,  to  the  time  of  Hadrian, 
the  greatest  of  all  road-builders,  a.d.  120.  Then  it 
became  a  true  "  street,"  made  in  the  thorough  manner 
described  by  Vitruvius,  and  paved  throughout  with 
stone  blocks  ;  the  "  strata  "  from  which  the  word 
"  street  "  is  derived. 

Engineered  with  all  that  road-making  science  which, 
not  less  than  their  victories,  has  rendered  the  Romans 
famous  for  all  time,  the  Watling  Street,  as  the  Romans 
left  it,  stretched  from  sea  to  sea.  Starting  from  their 
three  great  harbour  fortresses  on  the  Kentish  coast — 
from  Rutupice,  Partus  dubris,  and  Lemanis,  Englished 
now  as  Richborough,  Dover,  and  Lympne — it  converged 
in  three  branches  upon  their  first  inland  camp  and 
city  of  Diirovernwn,  where  Canterbury  now  stands. 
Proceeding  thenceforward  on  the  lines  of  the  present 
Dover  Road,  the  Roman  road  came  to  their  next 
station  of  Durolevum,  whose  site  no  antiquary  has 
fixed  convincingly,  but  which  might  have  been  at 
either  Sittingbourne,  Ospringe,  Davington,  or  Key 
Street.  Thence  it  reached  Durohrivae,  which  was 
certainly  on  the  site  of  Rochester.  Crossing  the 
Medway  by  a  trajectus,  or  perhaps  even  by  a  bridge  of 
either  stone  or  wood,  the  road  passed  through  Strood, 
and  branched  off  through  Cobham,  coming  again  to 
the  modern  highway  at  Dartford  Brent.  Perhaps  it 
even  had  two  branches  here,  one  touching  the  river  at 
Vagniacae,  probably  both  Northfleet  and  Southfleet ; 
and  the  other  keeping,  as  we  have  seen,  inland  until  a 


98  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

junction  was  effected  near  Dartford.  But  Avith  its 
proximity  to  London,  the  story  and  the  geography  of 
WatHng  Street  grow  not  a  httle  confused.  Where,  for 
instance,  the  succeeding  station  of  Noviomagus  was 
situated  no  one  can  say  with  certainty.  It  might  have 
been  at  Keston  ;  it  probably  was  at  Crayford  ;  or  there 
inight  have  been  two  branches  again,  as  some  anti- 
quaries suggest.  Through  London,  the  Wathng  Street 
went  across  England,  past  St.  Albans  and  Wroxeter, 
and  finally  to  Segontium,  or  the  hither  side  of  the 
Menai  Straits,  throwing  off  a  branch  to  Deva,  Chester. 

This  and  other  great  roads  grew  gradually  to  per- 
fection throughout  the  country  for  four  hundred  years. 
Towns  and  military  stations  dotted  them  at  intervals, 
and  in  between  the  abodes  of  men  the  way  was  lined, 
after  the  custom  of  the  Roman  people,  with  tombs 
and  cemeteries.  This  explains  the  many  ''  finds  " 
of  sepulchral  urns  and  various  relics  beside  the  road. 

When  the  Saxons  came,  they  could  not  pronounce 
the  name  by  which  the  half-Roman  people  called  this 
road,  and  so  "  Gwyddelin  "  became  "  watling  "  on 
their  tongues,  while  "  strata "  was  corrupted  to 
"  street."  No  new  roads  were  made  now,  and, 
indeed,  not  until  the  Turnpike  Acts  of  George  the 
Third's  time  and  the  era  of  MacAdam  was  the  art  of 
road-making  practised  again  in  England.  For  ages 
the  "  roads  "  of  this  country  were  a  byword  and 
a  reproach  to  us.  By  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century  the  Roman  roads  that  had  been  made  and 
kept  in  repair  for  hundreds  of  years  fell  into  ruin, 
and  the  detritus  and  miscellaneous  accumulations  of 
twenty-five  generations  now  cover  the  greater  portion 
of  them.  At  a  depth  varying  from  five  to  fourteen, 
and  even  eighteen,  feet,  excavators  have  come  upon 
the  hard  surface  of  the  original  Roman  road,  and 
mosaic  pavements  of  villas  found  at  that  extreme 
depth  attest  how  the  surface  of  a  country  may  be 
altered  only  by  the  gradual  deposit  of  vegetable 
matter.     The  thickest  deposits  are  found  in  low-lying 


THE   OLD   ROADS  99 

situations,  where  the  flow  of  streams  or  rain-water 
has  brought  hquid  earth  to  settle  upon  the  deserted 
sites  of  an  ancient  civiHsation.  This  has  occurred 
notably  at  such  places  as  Dartford,  Rochester,  and 
Canterbury,  all  situated  in  deep  valleys,  where 
springs  and  storms  have  united  to  bring  mud,  sand, 
and  gravel  down  from  the  hillsides,  and  thus  to 
equalise  in  some  measure  the  ancient  irregularities 
of  the  scenery.  While  the  hollows  have  thus  been 
rendered  less  profound,  the  hill-tops  and  table-lands 
have  remained  very  much  as  they  were,  and  it  is 
in  these  elevated  situations  that  the  line  of  Watling 
Street  can  most  readily  be  traced,  or  could  have  been 
had  not  the  stone  pavings  that  composed  the  road 
been  long  ages  ago  abstracted. 

This  long  neglect  of  the  roads  made  country  journeys 
exceedingly  difficult  and  dangerous.  Travellers'  tales 
in  England  during  six  or  seven  centuries  are  concerned 
with  two  great  evils  ;  highway  robbery  and  the 
shocking  state  of  the  roads  ;  and  so  deep  and  dangerous 
were  some  of  the  quagmires  that,  rather  than  attempt 
to  cross  them,  coachmen  would  drive  through  wayside 
fields,  and  thus  make  a  road  for  themselves.  It  was  in 
this  way  that  ancient  highways  became  diverted,  and 
the  pedestrian  Avho  finds  the  route  between  two  towns 
to  be  extraordinarily  circuitous  must  often  look  to 
these  circumstances  for  an  explanation.  The  southern 
counties  bore  a  bad  reputation  for  impassable  roads 
until  about  se^'enty  years  ago,  and  Kentish  miles  were 
long  linked  with  Essex  stiles  and  Norfolk  wiles  as 
prime  causes  of  begu'.lement  ;  while  the  fertility  of 
Kentish  soil  is  joined  with  the  muddy  character  of 
Kentish  roads  in  two  old  county  proverbs.  Thus, 
"  Bad  for  the  rider,  good  for  the  abider,'  expressed 
truths  obvious  enough  to  those  who  came  this  way 
a  hundred  years  ago  ;  and  "  There  is  good  land  where 
there  is  foul  way  "  would  have  said  much  for  the 
excellence  of  Kent,  where  all  the  ways  were  foul. 
But   if  the   traveller   was    not   a   landed   gentleman, 


100  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

except  in  the  sense  that  he  was  generally  covered  with 
nmd  from  head  to  foot,  the  reflection  that  the  county 
through  which  he  waded  deep  in  slush  must  be  singularly 
fertile  could  scarce  have  afforded  him  much  consolation 
for  lost  time  and  spoiled  clothes.  Here  is  a  tale  of  an 
unfortunate  horseman  bogged  on  these  miscalled 
"  roads  "  which  is  quite  eloquent  of  what  old-time 
wayfaring  was  like.  He  comes  to  a  suspicious-looking 
slough  and  hesitates.  "  Is  there  a  good  bottom  here, 
my  man  ?  "  he  asks  of  a  country  joskin  regarding  him 
with  a  wide  smile.  "  Oo-ah  !  yes,  there's  a  good 
bottom  to  un,"  replies  the  countryman,  and  the 
traveller  urges  on  his  Avay  until,  within  a  yard  or  so, 
his  horse  sinks  to  the  girth  in  liquid  mud.  "  I  thought 
you  said  there  was  a  good  bottom  to  this  road,"  shouts 
the  traveller.  "  Yes,"  rejoins  the  rustic,  "  soo  there 
ees,  but  you  a'n't  coom  to  un  yit,  master." 


XX 

Stkood  is  one  long  street  of  miscellaneous  houses, 
with  fields  and  meadows  running  up  to  the  back- 
yards ;  with  engine-shops,  mills,  wheelwrights,  and 
a  variety  of  other  noisy  trades  clanging  and  clattering 
in  the  rear,  and  an  old  church  on  the  hillside  to  the  left, 
appropriately  dedicated  to  that  patron  of  thieves  and 
sailor-men,  Saint  Nicholas.  But  whether  or  no 
"  Saint  Nicholas'  clerks  "  looked  in  here  to  pray  the 
saint  to  send  them  "  rick  franklins  and  great  oneyers  " 
across  that  "  high  old  robbing  hill,"  I  should  not  like 
to  say  ;  having  though,  the  while,  a  shrewd  suspicion 
that  their  piety  was  somewhat  to  seek,  and  that  the 
shrine  of  the  saint  profited  but  little,  if  at  all,  from  their 
ill-gotten  gains  upon  the  road. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  the  old 
houses  here  and  at  Rochester,  and,  indeed,  along  a 
great  portion   of  the  Dover  Road,   is  the  great  use 


"CRISPIN   AND   CRISPIANUS"  101 

of  weather-boarding,  chiefly  on  the  upper  storeys. 
An  instance  of  this  is  seen  at  Strood  at  an  inn,  the 
"  Crispin  and  Crispianus,"  standing  in  the  main 
street.  A  still  more  interesting  point  about  this  old 
house  is  its  pictorial  swinging  sign,  overhanging  the 
pathway — a  representation  of  the  two  shoemaker 
brothers,  Crispin  and  Crispian,  at  work,  cobbling  boots. 
The  brothers  were  Christian  martyrs  who  suffered 
death  at  Soissons,  a.d.  287.  How  they  came  to  serve 
as  the  sign  of  an  inn  is  quite  unknown.  It  has  been 
suggested  that,  as  Aglncourt  was  i'ought  on  Saint 
Crispin's  Day,  this  old  sign  is  of  the  warlike  and 
patriotic  order  to  which  belong  the  Waterloo, 
Wellington,  Nelson,  Alma,  and  Trafalgar  signs  that 
are  so  plentiful  on  this  road  ;  but  it  is  a  great  deal 
more  likely  that  it  is  a  relic  of  the  days  when  men 
made  pilgrimages  to  Becket's  shrine,  when  innkeepers 
found  their  account  to  he  in  calling  their  houses  after 
some  popular  saint  or  another. 

A  curious  incident  in  connection  with  the  "  Crispin 
and  Crispianus  "  must  be  noted  before  we  pass  on. 
It  happened  in  1830.  One  night  ii:  September  of 
that  year,  a  doctor  who  had  only  just  then  commenced 
practice  in  Strood  was  called  in  to  see  a  man  lying 
at  the  point  of  death  in  an  upper  room  of  the  old  inn. 
He  hastened  to  the  place,  aid  found  a  man  lying  in 
bed  who  told  him  that,  although  he  was  known  only 
as  an  ostler,  he  was  really  the  Earl  of  Coleraine,  nephew 
of  that  notorious  Colonel  Hanger  who  is  chiefly  known 
as  the  riotous  boon-companion  of  the  Prince  Regent  in 
the  early  days  of  Brighton  and  the  Pavilion.  Colonel 
Hanger  was  the  fourth  earl,  and  succeeded  his  brother 
in  the  title,  which  he  never  assumed.  He  died, 
childless,  in  1824,  and  the  earldom  became  extinct. 
As  Colonel  Hanger  was  the  youngest  son  of  his  father, 
and  as  no  mention  has  ever  been  made  of  any  of  his 
elder  brothers  leaving  sons,  the  matter  is  not  a  little 
mysterious,  especially  as  the  colonel's  right  to  the 
title,    had    he    chosen   to   use   it,    was    not    disputed. 


102  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

However,  the  strange  man  who  died  on  September 
20,  1830,  at  the  "  Crispin  and  Crispianus  "  apparently 
satisfied  Doctor  Humphrey  Wickham  of  the  truth 
of  his  story,  and  that  his  real  name  was  Charles 
Parrott  Hanger,  instead  of  "  Charley  Roberts,"  by 
which  he  had  been  knov/n  at  Strood  and  the  neighbour- 
hood for  twenty  years.  During  this  time  he  had  acted 
as  ostler  at  the  coaching  inns  of  Rochester  and 
Chatham  ;  had  tramped  the  country,  selling  laces, 
thread,  tape,  and  other  small  wares  ;  and  on  Sundays 
shaved  labourers.  He  had  deserted  his  wife  years 
before.  She  was  long  dead,  and  he  had  a  son 
apprenticed  to  a  firm  of  ironmongers  at  Birmingham. 
To  this  son  he  left  all  he  was  possessed  of,  makii.g 
the  doctor  his  executor.  It  will  not  be  imagined 
that  this  ex-ostler,  dying  in  a  room  of  the  "  Crispin 
and  Crispianus,"  where  he  was  lodged  by  the  landlady 
out  of  charity,  had  anything  to  bequeath  ;  but  the 
doctor  paid  over,  as  executor,  the  sum  of  £1000  to 
Charles  Henry  Hanger,  the  son  of  this  eccentric. 


XXI 

And    so,    as    Mr.    Samuel    Pepys    might    say,    into 
Rochester. 

Rochester  was  to  Dickens  variously  "  Mudfog," 
"  Great  Winglebury,"  "  Dullborough,"  and  "  Cloister- 
ham."  It  cannot  be  said  that  any  of  these  names 
form  anything  like  an  adequate  word-picture  of  the 
place.  As  names,  they  vary  from  good  to  indifferent, 
and  very  bad,  but  none  of  them  shadow  forth  the 
real  Rochester,  which  is  rather  a  busy  place  than  other- 
wise :  none,  for  instance,  are  so  happily  descriptive 
as  that  under  which  a  waggish  fellow  introduced  a 
wealthy  distiller  to  an  assemblage  of  Polish  notables — as 
"  Count  Caskowisky."  I  might  pluck  a  feather  from 
Dickens'  wing  with  which  to  furnish  forth  a  wounding 


ROCHESTER  103 

shaft,  and  say  of  Rochester,  under  any  of  those 
pseudonyms,  as  Trabbs'  boy  said  in  another  connection 
(and  vet  not  deserve  the  title  of  "  unhmited  miscreant,") 
"  Don't  know  yah  !  " 

The  somnolent  place  which  Dickens  drew — its 
High  Street  a  narrow  lane,  its  houses  abodes  of  gloom 
and  mystery — has  not  much  existence  in  fact.  It  is, 
of  course,  heresy  to  say  so  (but  it  is  none  the  less  true), 
that  although  no  other  place  was  probably  so  well 
known  to  Dickens,  and  that  from  his  youth  upward, 
yet  he  never  caught  the  true  note  of  Rochester.  That 
he  loved  the  place  seems  obvious  enough,  but  his  was 
not  the  Gothic,  mediaeval  temperament  that  could 
really  appreciate  it  aright.  The  test  of  this  is  found  in 
the  fact  that  although  Dickens  has  written  many 
glowing  pages  on  Rochester,  and  apparenth^  yielded  to 
none  in  his  admiration  for  the  old  city,  yet  its  appear- 
ance is  far  more  beautiful  to  the  stranger  learned  in 
Dickens-lore  than  anything  he  is  prepared  to  see. 

Busy,  beautiful  Rochester,  and  none  the  less 
beautiful  because  busy.  The  traveller  who  first  sees 
the  old  place,  its  castle  and  cathedral  and  the  turbid 
Medway,  from  Strood,  is  fortunate  in  his  approach, 
and  will  never  forget  the  grand  picture  it  makes. 
To  his  right  stretches  away  for  miles  the  broad  valley 
of  the  Medway,  with  bold  hills  crowned  with  windmills, 
above,  and  the  stream,  diminishing  in  long  perspective, 
below  ;  ^\dth  jutting  promontories  where  the  factory- 
chimneys  of  Borstal  and  Wouldham  stand  up,  clustered 
like  the  stalks  of  monstrous  vegetables,  and  the  red- 
sailed  barges  that  drop  down  with  wind  and  tide. 
Before  him  rise  the  great  keep,  the  cathedral,  and  the 
clustered  red  roofs  of  the  cit^^  with  a  glimpse  of  the 
High  Street,  the  Town  Hall  and  its  great  vane — a 
full-rigged  ship — at  the  other  end  of  the  bridge. 
And  all  the  while  to  his  left  is  the  shrieking  and  the 
screaming  of  the  trains,  rolling  in  thunder  over  the  two 
railway  bridges  that  absolutely  shut  out  and  ruin  the 
view  down  the  stream.     The  bustle,  roar,  and  rattle  of 


104  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

the  trains,  the  busy,  yet  silent,  traffic  of  the  river,  the 
smoke  rising  in  wreaths  from  those  distant  chimneys 
of  Wouldham  and  Borstal,  all  bespeak  labour  and 
commerce,  and  all  these  rumours  of  a  busy  community 
blend  finely  with  the  shattered  majesty  of  that  ancient 
Castle,  the  solemnity  of  the  Cathedral,  and  the  noisy, 
yet  restful,  carving  of  the  raucous  rooks  who  circle  round 
about  those  lofty  battlements,  their  outcry  mingled 
with  the  sobbing,  moaning  voices  of  the  pigeons, 
and  the  shrill  piping  of  querulous  sea-birds. 

The  bridge  over  which  Mr.  Pickwick  leaned  and 
meditated  while  waiting  for  breakfast  has  gone  the 
way  of  many  another  old  building  referred  to  in  that 
book  which  will  presently  have  a  quite  unique 
archaeological  value,  so  changed  are  the  varied 
haunts  of  the  Pickwickians.  Necessity,  they  say, 
the  call  of  progress,  demanded  the  removal  of  the  fine 
stone  bridge  of  eleven  arches  that  had  spanned  the 
Medway  so  efficiently  for  five  centuries,  and  it  was 
removed  in  1856  ;  but  how  cruel  the  necessity,  and 
how  heavy  a  toll  we  pay  for  our  progression  perhaps 
only  those  who  had  stood  upon  the  ancient  ways  can 
tell.  The  masonry  was  so  strong  that  it  was  found 
necessary  to  blow  it  up. 

Meanwhile,  we  must  clear  our  minds  from  a  very 
reasonable  prejudice,  and  acknowledge  that,  as  an 
example  of  modern  engineering,  the  new  Rochester 
Bridge  is  very  fine.  It  is  of  iron,  broad  and  graceful 
as  its  iron  construction  will  allow,  and  it  spans  the 
river  in  three  great  arches.  It  cost  £160,000,  exclusive 
of  approaches,  to  build,  and  was  opened  in  1856.  The 
old  bridge  had  a  protecting  balustrade  which  more  or 
less  effectually  saved  the  lieges  from  being  blown  by 
furious  winds  into  the  water.  Before  the  balustrade 
there  were  high  iron  railings,  which  were  fixed  according 
to  the  French  Ambassador,  the  Due  de  Nivernais, 
"  so  that  drunkards,  not  uncommon  here,  may  not 
mix  water  with  their  wine." 

That  the  balustrade  was  not  very  greatly  to  be  relied 


ROCHESTER  105 

upon,  and  that  Mr.  Pickwick,  bulky  man  as  he  was, 
ran  a  considerable  risk  when  he  leaned  over  the 
parapet,  may  be  gathered  when  we  read  that  on  a  night 
in  1836  a  storm  demolished  a  great  stretch  of  it,  and 
that  the  Princess  Victoria,  who  was  coming  up  the  road 
from  Dover,  was  content  to  be  advised  to  stay  over- 
night at  the  "  Bull,"  rather  than  attempt  to  cross 
over  to  Strood.  The  riverside  wore  a  somewhat 
different  aspect  then.  Low  and  broken  cliffs 
picturesquely  shelved  down  to  the  water's  edge  where 
a  neat  embankment  now  runs,  and  the  balustrades 
of  the  old  bridge  serve  their  old  purpose  on  this  new 
river- wall.  The  embankment  is  an  improvement 
from  an  utilitarian  point  of  view,  but  its  long  straight 
line  hurts  the  artistic  sense. 

The  stranger  should  come  into  Rochester  preferably 
on  the  evening  of  a  summer's  day,  and,  as  first 
impressions  must  ever  remain  the  most  distinct,  he 
should  walk  in  over  the  bridge.  At  such  times  a 
golden  haze  spreads  over  the  city  and  the  river,  and 
renders  both  a  dream  of  beauty.  The  gilt  ship  on 
the  Town  Hall  blazes  like  molten  metal  ;  the  "  moon- 
faced clock  "  of  the  Corn  Exchange  is  correspondingly 
calm,  and  the  wide  entrance-halls  of  the  older  inns 
begin  to  glow  with  light.  You  should  have  walked 
a  good  fifteen  miles  or  more  on  the  day  of  your  first 
coming  into  Rochester,  and  then  you  will  appreciate 
aright  the  mellow  comforts  of  its  old  inns.  But  not 
at  once  will  the  connoisseur  of  antiquity  and  first 
impressions  who  thus  enters  the  old  city  repair  him 
to  his  inn.  He  will  turn  into  the  Cathedral  precincts 
underneath  the  archway  of  Chertsey's  Gate,  and  I 
hope  he  will  not  already  have  read  Edwin  Drood, 
because  an  acquaintance  with  that  tale  quite  spoils 
one's  Rochester,  and  leaves  an  ineffaceable  mark  of  a 
modern  sordid  tragedy  upon  the  hoary  stones  of 
Cathedral,  Castle,  and  Close.  It  is  as  though  one  had 
come  to  the  place  after  reading  the  unrelieved  brutality 
of  a  newspaper  report.     Rochester  demands  a  romance 


106  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

of  the  Ivanhoe  type  ;  chivalry  or  necessities  of  State 
should  have  ennobled  slaughter  here,  but  a  tale  of 
secret  murder  for  private  ends  vulgarises  and  tarnishes 
the  place,  especially  when  it  is  told  with  all  Dickens' 
wealth  of  local  allusion.  He  had  no  comprehension 
of  tragedy  and  romance  other  than  those  of  the  street 
and  the  police-court  ;  which  is  to  say  that  he  had 
better  have  left  Rochester  alone,  so  far  as  the  Mystery 
of  Edzvin  Drood  is  concerned. 

If  my  imaginary  traveller  comes  to  Rochester 
without  having  read  that  tale  he  will  be  singularly 
fortunate.  Otherwise  he  will  have  an  uneasy  feeling 
as  he  stands  and  gazes  a  moment  upon  the  west 
front  of  the  Cathedral,  or  peeps  into  the  nave,  that 
it  ought  to  be  re-consecrated.  This,  of  course,  is 
a  tribute  to  Dickens'  descriptive  and  narrative  poAvers 
that  clothe  the  doings  of  his  characters  with  so  great 
an  air  of  reality  ;  but  how  unfortunate  for  those  who 
like  their  murders  to  be  decently  old  and  historical 
that  he  should  have  brought  the  atmosphere  of  the 
police-court  into  the  grave  and  reverend  air  of  this 
ancient  city. 

My  traveller,  happily  unversed  in  all  this,  will  gaze 
upon  the  Cathedral  and  the  Castle  Keep,  where  the 
rooks  are  circling  to  rest,  and,  coming  again  into  the 
High  Street,  will  turn  to  his  inn,  where  appetite, 
sharpened  by  pedestrianism  and  fresh  air,  may  be 
appeased  as  well  now  as  in  those  days  of  heavy  drinking 
and  no  less  heavy  eating,  when  seventy-two  coaches 
passed  through  Rochester  daily  and  the  trains  that 
thuiKier  across  the  Medway  were  undreamt  of. 

The  inns  of  Rochester  receive,  as  may  well  be 
supposed,  many  pilgrims  who  for  love  of  Chaucer, 
Shakespeare,  and  Dickens,  come  hither,  not  alone 
frpm  all  parts  of  England,  but  from  America,  and 
even  from  foreign-speaking  countries,  and  the  visitors' 
books  testify  not  only  to  their  opinions  of  the  place 
but  also  of  each  other.  Thus  at  one  inn  I  read  the 
signatures   of  a   party   of   Germans,    to   which   some 


THE    "BULL"  107 

prejudiced  Briton,  after  sundry  offensive  remarks 
about  foreigners  in  general  and  Germans  in  particular, 

adds,  "  They  are  everywhere,  d n  them  !  "    But  I 

must  confess  that  the  following  surprised  me,  even 
after  a  long  acquaintance  with  the  inanities  of  visitors' 
books.  Some  one  had  remarked  "  How  like  Rochester 
Cathedral  was  to  a  Catholic  Church,"  whereupon  some 
other  idiot  adds,  "  Of  course  it  is  Catholic,  but  not 
Roman  Catholic."  Really  one  scarcely  knows  whom 
to  pity  most. 

The  "  Bull  "  inn  (how  remarkably  like  its  frontage 
is  to  that  other  "  Bull  "  at  Dartford)  is  much  the 
same  now  as  when  Dickens  wrote  of  it  ;  only  there 
.are  portraits  of  Dickens  hanging  on  the  staircase 
now,  and  the  ball-room,  with  its  "  elevated  den,"  is 
a  place  of  solitude.  They  still  show  j^ou  the  rooms 
where  Winkle  and  Mr.  Pickwick  slej^t,  as  though 
they  were  real  people,  and  so  great  an  affection  do 
the  members  of  the  Pickwick  Club  command,  that, 
while  pointing  out  where  Tracy  Tupman  and 
Mr.  Snodgrass  danced,  the  rooms  occupied  by  the 
Princess  Victoria  are  clean  forgotten.  So  literature 
scores  a  success  for  once  ;  but  I  wdsh  a  too  earnest 
loyalty  had  not  altered  the  sign  from  the  "  Bull  Inn  "  to 
the  "  Victoria  and  Bull  Hotel  "  !  The  hall  is  still 
"  a  very  grove  of  dead  game  and  dangling  joints 
of  mutton,"  and  the  "  illustrious  larder,  with  glass 
doors,  developing  cold  fowls  and  noble  joints  and 
tarts,  wherein  the  raspberry  jam  coyly  withdraws 
itself,  as  such  a  precious  creature  should,  behind  a 
lattice- work  of  j^astry,"  still  whets  the  appetites  of 
incoming  guests,  just  as  though  England  stood  where 
she  did,  and  as  if  our  trades  were  not  ruined  by 
foreign  competition,  our  industries  decayed,  the  army 
gone  to  the  dogs,  the  navy  to  Davy  Jones,  the  farmer 
to  the  workhouse,  and  the  shoi^keeper  to  the  Bank- 
ruptcy Court,  as  we  are  told  they  have.  No  doubt  all 
these  things  have  happened,  or  are  in  course  of 
fulfilment,  and  I  suppose  the  hotel-keepers  keep  up 


108  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

their  licences  merely  for  the  love  of  licensed  victualling, 
while  the  "  commercials  "  still  travel  the  roads  for 
old  acquaintance's  sake  rather  than  for  any  business 
that  may  be  doing.     How  disinterested  of  them  ! 


XXII 

I  NOTICE  that  there  is  a  great  tendency  among  those 
who  have  to  describe  Rochester  Cathedral  to  dismiss  it 
with  the  remarks  that  it  is  quite  small,  and  that  it 
was  "  restored  "  in  1825  and  1875.  These,  of  course, 
are  the  merest  ineptitudes  of  criticism,  and  if  we  allowed 
praise  or  censure  to  be  awarded  according  to  the  bulk, 
then  that  hideous  elephantine  conventicle,  Jezreel's 
Temple,  on  the  summit  of  Chatham  Hill,  would  easily 
bear  away  the  bell. 

But  size  has  little  to  do  with  a  right  appreciation 
of  architecture.  Chasteness  of  proportion,  the  degree 
of  artistry  shown  alike  in  details  and  in  the  execution 
of  the  whole,  are  the  sole  considerations  that  shall 
weigh  with  those  who  take  any  sort  of  an  intelligent 
interest  in  the  architecture  of  cathedrals  ;  and  the 
admiration  of  a  thing  that  "  licks  creation  "  in  the 
matter  of  measurement  is  senseless  if  it  is  not  wedded 
to  a  proper  perception  of  the  justness  of  the  parts  that 
go  to  make  its  bulk. 

The  Cathedral  of  Saint  Andrew  at  Rochester  is  at 
least  equally  interesting  with  that  of  Canterbury ; 
and  that  this  should  be  so  is  only  natural,  for  one  is 
the  complement  of  the  other.  Canterbury  was  the 
earliest  Cathedral  in  England  ;  the  See  of  Rochester 
was  established  immediately  afterwards,  and  was  for 
many  years  not  only  intimately  associated  with  that 
great  metropolitan  church,  but  was  actually  dependent 
upon  it.  Then,  the  early  Norman  Archbishops  and 
Priors  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishops  and  Priors  of 
Rochester  were  often  intimate  personal  friends  who 


ROCHESTER   CATHEDRAL  109 

had  come  over  together  from  Normandy  to  England  ; 
and  the  close  relations  thus  established  lasted  for  many 
years.  The  See  of  Rochester  was  founded  by  Saint 
Augustine  about  a.d.  600,  and  by  him  the  first  Bishop 
was  consecrated,  four  years  later. 

But  when  the  Norman  Conquest  brought  a  new 
era  of  church  building  into  England,  Rochester 
Cathedral  was  rebuilt.  Gundulf,  the  second  Norman 
Bishop,  the  friend  of  Anselm  and  Lanfranc,  the 
greatest  military  and  ecclesiastical  architect  of  his 
time,  prepared  to  erect  a  new  and  grander  edifice 
on  the  ruins  of  the  Saxon  church.  The  number  and 
extent  of  this  great  architect's  works  are  simply 
prodigious.  How  he  could  have  packed  into  even 
his  lengthy  life  the  duties  of  a  Churchman,  which 
we  are  told  by  those  who  knew  him  he  never  missed 
for  a  single  day  ;  the  cares  of  statecraft  which  also 
fell  to  his  lot  ;  and  the  building,  not  only  of  his 
Cathedral,  but  also  of  the  Tower  of  London,  Rochester 
Keep,  Dartford  Church,  Mailing  Abbey,  and  minor 
works,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  conceive.  He  was  con- 
secrated in  1077  and  died  in  1108,  before  he  had 
completed  his  work  here.  Ernulf,  Prior  of  Canterbury, 
succeeded  him,  and  finished  the  building,  which  was 
consecrated  in  1130,  in  the  same  year  that  witnessed 
the  completion  and  consecration  of  Ernulf 's  and 
Conrad's  new  Cathedral  at  Canterbury.  Here,  then, 
we  see  at  once  the  close  connection  between  the 
architectural  history  of  these  two  neighbouring 
churches.  Ernulf  had  a  hand  in  both  ;  a  very  large 
share  of  the  crypt,  the  west  front,  and  a  part  of  the 
nave  of  Rochester  was  his  ;  while  at  Canterbury  the 
crypt  and  the  choir  were  built  in  collaboration  with 
Prior  Conrad.  These  facts  partly  explain  the  unusual 
and  beautiful  feature  of  a  choir  raised  many  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  nave,  Avhich  is  characteristic  both 
of  Canterbury  and  Rochester  Cathedrals,  and  seen 
nowhere  else  in  England.  And  not  only  in  these 
most   prominent  features   of  their   architectural   con- 


110  THE  DOVER  ROAD 

struct  ion  are  the  two  buildings  alike  ;  their  stories 
run  curiously  parallel,  both  in  their  building  and 
in  their  destruction.  Less  than  fifty  years  after 
their  simultaneous  consecration,  both  churches  were 
partly  destroyed  by  fire,  and  their  ruined  portions 
rebuilt  in  the  Transitional  Norman  and  Early  English 
styles,  by  those  two  architects  who  are  supposed  to 
be  one  and  the  same  person — William  de  Hoo,  Bishop 
of  Rochester,  and  that  "  William  the  Englishman  " 
who  succeeded  French  William  of  Sens  in  rebuilding 
the  choir  of  Canterbury.  At  that  time,  allowing  for 
the  great  difference  in  their  relative  sizes,  the  two 
Cathedrals  must  have  borne  a  strong  likeness  to  one 
another  ;  and  when  we  look  upon  Ernulf's  nave  here, 
we  look  upon  the  likeness  of  the  nave  at  Canterbury 
until  that  period,  between  1390  and  1421,  when  Prior 
Chillendon  replaced  Lanfranc's  work  with  the  light  and 
lofty,  but  exceedingly  uninteresting.  Perpendicular 
nave  that  now  forms  the  western  end  of  the  Primate's 
Metropolitan  Church. 

Fortunately  for  ourselves,  who  think  Norman  work 
not  the  flower  of  ecclesiastical  architecture,  but  the 
most  interesting  and  aesthetically  satisfying  next  to 
the  incomparable  grace  of  the  Early  English  period, 
Rochester  was  too  poor  a  See  to  be  able  to  embark  on 
extensive  schemes  of  rebuilding,  and  we  are  spared  the 
rather  vulgar  ostentation  of  skill  and  wealth  to  which 
the  Perpendicular  style  lends  itself.  Little  could  be 
added  to  the  dignity  and  solemn  majesty,  the  right 
proportions  and  impressive  simplicity,  of  this  massive 
Norman  nave.  Here  came  Cromwell,  whose  soldiers 
quartered  their  horses  in  the  aisles,  leaving  the  building 
so  desecrated  that  a  saw-pit  sunk  afterwards  in  the 
pavements  seemed  a  scarcely  worse  use  of  the  House  of 
God.  Here  also  eighteenth-century  monumental 
masons  have  contrived  monuments  bad  enough,  even 
for  the  surroundings  of  classic  architecture,  but  no  less 
than  an  affront  in  this  place  ;  while  the  half-learnt 
Gothic  restorations  of  Cottingham,   whose  puerilities 


ST.  WILLIAM 


111 


of  seventy  years  ago  were  seen  in  the  choir,   are  a 
sorrow  to  behold. 

A  long  line  of  tombs  and  effigies,  from  Bishops 
down  to  a  Good  Samaritan  in  seventeenth-century 
costume,  carved  grotesquely  and  all  out  of  drawing, 
on  the  pavement  of  the  Lady  Chapel,  claim  attention, 
and  easily  first  among  them  is  the  beautiful  coloured 
effigy  of  Bishop  John  de  Sheppey,  discovered,  built 
up  in  his  recess,  in  1825.  The  plain  tomb  of  Gundulf 
is  shown,  and  the  resting-place  of  Bishop  Walter  de 


A    GOOD    SAMARITAX. 

Merton,  drowned  while  crossing  the  Medway  in  a 
boat,  1277.  The  authorities  of  Merton  College  have 
restored  and  beautified  the  tomb  of  their  founder, 
and  it  lies,  painted  and  decorated,  near  the  grave  of 
St.  William. 

Saint  William  of  Perth  was  for  long  the  chief  glory 
and  principal  source  of  income  to  the  Priory  and 
monks  of  Rochester.  He  was  a  wealthy  Scottish 
baker  who,  having  amassed  a  fortune,  probably  both 
by  overcharging  for  his  bread  and  in  the  giving  of 
shoit  weight,  determined  to  go  on  pilgrimage.  He 
must  have  been  a  superlative  rogue  and  cheat,   for 


112  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

nothing  less  than  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  would 
serve  his  purpose.  However,  he  never  reached  the 
Holy  City  ;  for,  having  arrived  at  Rochester  in  1201, 
and  having  contributed  magnificently  to  the  shrines 
there,  he  was  murdered  by  his  guide  while  journeying 
hence  to  Canterbury.  At  least,  so  runs  the  story, 
but  I  believe  the  monks  themselves  did  the  deed. 
They  were  exceedingly  poor,  having  by  some 
unexplained  excesses  squandered  the  wealth  which  the 
once  highly  venerated  bones  of  Saint  Paulinus  had 
brought  them,  and  they  had  already  melted  down 
the  silver  shrine  of  that  Saint  to  pay  their  way  withal. 
The  competition  of  Canterbury,  too,  was  killing,  and 
the  fame  of  Paulinus  paled  before  that  of  Becket ;  and 
so  they  probably  conceived  the  idea  of  murdering  the 
rich  pilgrim  in  order  to  obtain  at  once  a  remunerative 
martyr  of  their  own,  and  to  i3ut  themselves  in  funds 
with  the  wealth  he  carried  about  with  him.  If  the 
Dean  and  Chapter  of  Rochester  could  in  after  years 
wilfully  api3ropriate  to  their  own  uses  an  annual  income 
of  several  thousands  of  pounds  intended  for  educational 
purposes,  and  become  thus  common  thieves  and 
peculators,  what  scruples  could  be  supjDOsed  to  hinder 
the  monks  of  the  dark  ages  from  becoming  murderers  ? 

The  south-east  transept  has  a  curious  mural  monu- 
ment to  Richard  Watts  ;  with  a  coloured  and  very 
life-like  portrait-bust  "  starting  out  of  it  like  a  ship's 
figure-head,"  and  underneath  is  a  brass  to  the  memory 
of  Charles  Dickens.  On  the  eastern  wall  is  a  medallion 
profile  of  Joseph  Maas,  the  singer,  vulgar  and 
amateurish  beyond  the  power  of  words  to  tell. 

Rochester  Cathedral  is  not  rich  in  decorative 
carvings,  but  its  two  enriched  doorways  are  famous. 
One  is  the  beautiful  Norman  west  door,  of  five  receding 
arches,  carved  over  with  a  profusion  of  characteristic 
Norman  scrolls  ;  interlacing  patterns  ;  semi-human 
and  half -supernatural  figures  of  appalling  build  and 
ferocious  expression  ;  and  flanked  by  two  statues 
supposed   to   represent   Henry   the   First   and   Queen 


ROCHESTER   CASTLE  113 

Matilda.  The  other  is  the  unsurpassed  Decorated 
doorway  of  the  Chapter  House,  whose  sculptured 
emblematic  figures  of  the  Church,  and  of  angels,  priests 
and  bishops  are  at  the  other,  and  more  beautiful,  end 
of  decorative  art. 

Having  seen  all  these  things,  the  verger  who  has 
hitherto  shepherded  his  flock  of  visitors  through 
these  upper  regions,  takes  them  down  a  flight  of 
stone  stairs  and  unlocks  the  door  of  the  crypt.  An 
ancient  and  mouldy  smell  rushes  up  from  the  dark 
labyrinth  of  pillars  and  indistinct  arches,  and  the 
ladies  of  the  party  pretend  to  be  terrified.  But  they 
might  just  as  well  be  afraid  of  a  coal-cellar,  which  is 
generally  darker  and  dirtier,  for  neither  bones  nor 
coffins,  nor  anything  more  awful  than  a  few  shattered 
fragments  of  architectural  carvings  are  to  be  seen. 
The  usual  legends  current  in  most  old  places  would 
have  us  believe  that  a  subterraneous  passage  runs 
between  Castle  and  Cathedral,  and  certainly  they  are 
sufficiently  near  one  another  for  such  a  communication 
to  have  been  made  ;  but  these  legends  have  never  been 
resolved  into  fact.  Near  neighbours  they  are,  and  the 
Cathedral  has  suffered  not  a  little  at  different  times 
from  this  close  proximity.  For  when  Rufus  besieged 
the  Castle,  and  when,  in  1215  and  1264,  it  was  closely 
invested  for  respectively  three  months  and  a  week,  the 
Cathedral  had  its  share  of  the  violent  doings  that 
resulted  in  the  Keep  being  undermined  and  the  wooden 
bridge  of  Rochester  burned.  Gundulfs  Tower  had  not 
been  completed  when  that  mighty  master-builder  died, 
and  although  it  is  generally  ascribed  to  him,  it  seems 
really  to  have  been  finished  under  the  supervision  of  an 
inexperienced  architect  employed  by  that  Archbishop 
William  de  Corbeil  to  whom  and  his  successors  of 
Canterbury  Henry  the  Second  granted  "  the  perpetual 
charge  and  constableship  of  the  Castle  of  Rochester." 
This  prelate  died  in  1139,  and  the  irony  of  circumstances 
decreed  that  only  one  other  of  the  Archbishops  to 
whom    the    "  perpetual    constableship  "    was    granted 


114  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

should  ever  exercise  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  gift. 
This  was  Stephen  Langton.  The  Castle  was  found  to  be 
too  important  in  those  times  for  it  to  be  held  by  any 
other  than  the  King,  and  so  to  the  Crown  it  reverted. 
NoAv  that  it  is  ruined  and  open  to  the  sky  the  Mayors  of 
Rochester  are  CcV  officio  constables,  and  they  wear  a 
sword  on  grand  occasions  as  an  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  their  dignity. 

Rochester  Keep  rises  to  a  height  of  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  feet.  Walls  ranging  from  ten  to 
twelve  feet  in  thickness  attest  its  old-time  strength, 
and  the  ornamentation  both  of  the  State  apartments, 
and  of  the  Chapel  on  the  third  floor,  betokens  a 
considerable  display  made  in  those  far-off  times.  But 
although  one  of  the  loftiest  Norman  keeps  extant  ; 
though  strong  and  internally  ornate,  it  seems  to  have 
been  built  by  a  copyist  of  Gundulf  who  perhaps  had 
neither  his  resources  nor  his  love  of  a  neat  and 
workmanlike  finish.  AVhatever  the  cause,  certain  it 
is  that  here  we  miss  the  close- jointed  external  ashlar 
that  we  are  accustomed  to  see  in  such  grand  con- 
temporary Norman  keeps  as  those  of  Castle  Hedingham 
and  Scarborough.  Ashlaring  has  been  only  sparingly 
used  for  quoins  and  dressings  of  door-  and  window- 
openings,  and  the  exterior  of  this  keep  chiefly  shows  a 
broad  expanse  of  roughly  set  Kentish  rag-stone. 
The  result,  although  it  does  not  commend  itself 
architecturally,  is  at  least  bold  and  rugged  and 
altogether  satisfying  to  the  artist. 

There  is,  according  to  a  legend  of  unknown  age, 
a  vast  treasure  buried  beneath  the  ground  here ; 
concealed  in  some  mysterious  crypt  Avhose  door  may 
only  by  rarest  chance  be  found.  From  this  door 
hangs  a  Hand  of  Glory,  and  not  until  the  Hand  is 
extinguished,  finger  by  finger,  can  it  be  forced  open. 
Absolute  silence  is  to  be  observed  by  the  adventurer 
while  extinguishing  the  Blazing  Hand,  or  the  mystic 
power  is  broken.  There  was  once,  says  a  sequel  to 
the  foregoing  legend,  a  bold  and  fortunate  spirit  who 


ROCHESTER   BRIDGE  115 

had  by  some  means  discovered  this  hidden  door.  He 
extinguished  the  guardian  Hand,  all  but  the  thumb  ; 
and,  proceeding  to  snuff  this  out  also,  he  uttered  an 
incautious  exclamation  of  triumph.  The  fingers 
instantly  burst  into  flame  again,  and  the  man  was 
dashed  senseless  to  the  ground  ;  nor  was  he  ever  again 
so  fortunate  as  to  recover  the  spot. 


xxni 

Rochester  has  had  many  Royal  and  distinguished 
visitors,  and  many  of  them  \va,ve  left  traces  of  their 
sojourn  in  more  or  less  quaint,  instructive,  and 
amusing  accounts.  When  Edward  the  First  came 
here  in  1300,  he  gave  seven  shillings  to  the  Priory 
for  the  shrine  of  Saint  William,  and  twelve  shillings 
compensation  to  one  Richard  Lamberd  whose  horse, 
hired  for  the  King's  service,  was  blown  over  Rochester 
Bridge  into  the  Medway  and  drowned.  On  his  return 
from  Canterbury,  nine  days  later,  the  King  flung  his 
shillings  about  in  quite  a  reckless  manner  ;  giving 
seven  shillings  each  for  the  shrines  of  Saints  Ithamar 
and  Paulinus  ;  while  bang  Avent  tAventy-one  other 
shillings  at  Chatham,  offered  to  the  image  of  the 
Blessed  Mary  by  the  King,  the  Queen,  and  the  Prince 
of  Wales. 

The  Bridge  at  Rochester,  over  which  that  unfortunate 
horse  was  blown,  was  at  this  time  a  crazy  structure  of 
wood,  and  so  dangerous  that  most  folks  preferred 
crossing  the  Medway  by  boat.  One  unfortunate 
minstrel  Avas  bloAA'n  into  the  Avater  just  as  he  reached 
the  middle,  and  he  AA'cnt  floating  doAA'n  the  stream 
harping  the  praises  of  Our  Lady  upon  his  harp,  and 
calling  out  for  her  help  at  the  same  time  in  English,  as 
the  chronicler  remarks — and  this  Avas  his  English  : — 

Help  usvyf,  help  usvyf, 
Oiyer  me — I  forga  mi  lyf. 


116 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


By   "  usvyf  "   he   meant   "  wife."     "  Help   us,    wife," 
which  strikes  us  as  being  extremely  familiar. 

The  Holy  Mother,  notwithstanding  this  horrid  jargon, 
was  pleased  to  save  him,  and  this  pious  "  Harpur  a 
Roucestre  "  landed  about  a  league  below  the  city, 
making  his  way  forthwith  to  a  church  to  offer  up 
thanks,  and  followed  by  an  immense  crowd  Avho  had 
been  watching  the  proceedings  without  attempting  to 
save  him,  which  is  ever  the  wav  of  crowds. 


ROCHESTER  CASTLE   AND   THE    MEDWAY. 


Fourteen  years  later,  the  Queen  of  Robert  Bruce 
was  a  State  prisoner  in  Rochester  Castle,  with  her 
sister  and  daughter,  and  here  they  remained  until 
Bannockburn  altered  the  complexion  of  affairs.  King 
John  of  France,  too,  appears  here,  and  in  a  grateful 
mood,  for  he  was  going  back  to  his  kingdom,  and 
so,  to  please  the  saints,  made  an  offering  of  forty 
crowns    (valued   at   £6     136'.     4(/.)   at   the   Cathedral, 


HENRY  MEETS   ANNE  117 

departing  for  "  Stiborne,"  and  resting  the  night  at 
Ospringe.  Sigismund,  Emperor  of  Germany,  passed 
through  "  Rotschetter  "  in  1416,  with  a  retinue  of  a 
thousand  knights,  on  a  visit  to  Henry  the  Fifth,  and 
Henry  the  Seventh  was  here  in  1492,  1494,  and  1498, 
crossing  over  from  Strood  in  a  ferry-boat  for  which 
he  paid  £2,  an  expense  which  would  have  been  quite 
unnecessary  had  the  authorities  kept  the  Bridge  (then 
of  stone,  and  about  a  century  old)  in  decent  repair. 
A  few  months  later  than  his  last  visit,  the  King  sent 
the  Mayor  of  the  town  £5  toward  its  restoration,  for 
funds  were  low,  and  the  indulgences — to  say  nothing 
of  the  forty  da3^s'  remittances  from  Purgatory  for  all 
manner  of  sins — offered  by  Archbishop  Morton  to  any 
one  who  would  give  towards  the  work,  were  but  little 
in  request. 

Charles  the  Fifth,  Emperor  of  Germany,  was  the 
next  considerable  personage  here,  and  of  how  great  a 
consideration  he  was  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that  he  came  up  the  road  from  Dover  with  a  train  of 
two  thousand  attendants.  He  and  Henry  the  Eighth, 
who  had  gone  down  to  Dover  to  meet  him,  stayed 
at  Rochester  on  the  night  of  Sunday,  June  1,  1522,  and 
went  on  to  Gravesend  the  following  day.  Eighteen 
years  later,  the  King,  already  a  much-married  man, 
came  here  to  have  a  private  view  of  his  new  matrimonial 
venture. 

Two  accounts  are  given  of  this  meeting  of  Henry  the 
Eighth  and  Anne  of  Cleves.  They  agree  neither  with 
themselves  nor  with  that  other  account  in  which  the 
King  is  made  to  call  her  a  "  Flanders  mare  "  : — 
"  As  she  passed  toward  Rochester,"  writes  Hall,  the 
Chronicler,  "  on  New  Yeres  Even,  on  Reynam  Down, 
met  her  the  Duke  of  Norffolke,  and  the  Lord  Dacre 
of  the  South,  and  the  Lord  Mount joye,  with  a  gret 
company  of  Knyghtes  and  Esquiers  of  Norffolke  and 
Suffolke,  and  the  Barons  of  thxchequer,  (sic)  all  in 
coates  of  velvet  with  chaynes  of  golde,  which  brought 
her  to   Rochester,    where   she   lay   in   the   Palace   all 


118  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

New  Yeres  Day.  On  which  day  the  Kyng,  which 
sore  desyred  to  see  her  Grace,  accompanyed  with  no 
more  than  viii  persons  of  his  prevy  chaumbre,  and 
both  he  and  thei  all  aparelled  in  marble  coates,  prevely 
came  to  Rochester,  and  sodainl}^  came  to  her  presence, 
which  therwith  was  sumwhat  astonied  ;  but  after  he 
had  spoken  and  welcomed  her,  she  with  most  gracious 
and  lovyng  countenance  and  behavior  him  received 
and  Avelcomed  on  her  knees,  whom  he  gently  toke  up 
and  kyssed  ;  and  all  that  afternoone  commoned  and 
devised  with  her  "  (whatever  that  ma}^  mean),  "  and 
that  night  suj^ped  with  her,  and  the  next  day  he 
departed  to  Grenewich  and  she  came  to  Dartford." 
Now  hear  how  different  a  complexion  Stow  puts  upon 
this  meeting,  and  then  tell  me  what  you  think  of  the 
difficulties  of  history- writing  : — 

"  The  King  being  ascertained  of  her  arivall  and 
approch,  was  wonderfull  desirous  to  see  her,  of  whom 
hee  had  heard  so  great  commendations,  and  there- 
upon hee  came  very  privately  to  Rochester,  where 
hee  tooke  the  first  view  of  her  ;  and  when  he  had 
well  beheld  her,  hee  was  so  marvelously  astonished 
that  hee  knew  not  w^ll  what  to  doe  or  say.  Hee 
brought  with  him  divers  things,  which  hee  meant 
to  present  her  with  his  owne  hands,  that  is  to  say, 
a  partlet,  a  mufler  "  (Indian  shawls  had  not  yet  been 
introduced),  "  a  cup,  and  other  things  ;  but  being 
sodainly  quite  discouraged  and  amazed  with  her 
presence,  his  mind  changed,  and  hee  delivered  them 
unto  Sir  Anthony  Browne  to  give  them  unto  her, 
but  with  as  small  show  of  Kingly  kindness  as  might  be. 
The  King  being  sore  vexed  with  the  sight  of  her,  began 
to  utter  his  heart's  griefe  unto  divers  :  amongst  whom 
hee  said  unto  the  Lord  Admirall,  '  How  like  you  this 
woman  ?  Doe  you  think  her  so  personable,  faire,  and 
beautifull  as  report  hath  beene  made  unto  mee  of 
her — I  pray  you  tell  me  true  ?  '  " 

Whereupon  the  Lord  Admiral  discreetl}^  replied  no 
word  of  dispraise,  because  people  with  opinions  had 


"ROGUES   AND   PROCTORS"  119 

in  those  days  an  excellent  chance  of  losing  their  heads  ; 
merely  remarking  that  she  appeared  to  have  a  brown 
complexion  rather  than  the  fair  one  that  had  been 
represented  to  his  Majesty. 

"  Alas  !  "  replied  the  King,  "  whom  shall  men — to 
say  nothing  of  kings — trust  ?  I  promise  you  I  see  no 
such  thing  in  her  as  hath  been  shewed  to  me  of  her, 
either  by  pictures  or  report,  and  am  ashamed  that  men 
have  praised  her  as  they  have  done  ;  and  I  like  her 
not."     Which,  of  course,  was  final. 

Queen  Elizabeth,  of  course,  was  here,  not  once 
but  thrice,  and  on  her  first  visit  she  stayed  at  the 
"  Crown  "  inn,  "  which,"  says  Francis  Thynne,  "  is 
the  only  place  to  intertaine  Princes  comming  thither." 
It  was,  indeed,  the  place  where  her  father  stayed, 
and  where,  according  to  one  account,  Anne  of  Cleves 
lodged  ;  and  was  the  scene  of  the  inimitable  colloquy 
between  the  carriers  in  Henry  the  Fourth,  just  previous 
to  the  robbery  on  Gad's  Hill.  The  "  Crown,"  of  course, 
is  gone  now,  and  an  ugly  building,  bearing  the  same 
sign,  but  dating  only  from  1863,  stands  on  its  site. 

On  the  last  day  of  her  visit,  the  queen  was  entertained 
by  "  that  charitable  man  but  withal  most  determined 
enemy  to  Rogues  and  Proctors,"  Master  Richard 
Watts,  whose  almshouse  for  the  lodgment  of  six  poor 
travellers  bears  still  upon  its  front  the  evidence  of  his 
aversions.  Controversy  has  long  raged  around  the 
term  "  proctor,"  and  the  victory  seems  to  rest  Avith 
those  who  declare  that  the  class  thus  excluded  from  the 
benefits  of  Master  Watts'  charity  was  that  of  the 
"  procurators  "  who  were  licensed  by  the  Pope  to  go 
through  the  country  collecting  "  Peter's  pence  "  ; 
but  I  have  my  own  idea  on  that  point,  and  I  believe 
that  the  "  proctors  "  referred  to  were  not  papists,  but 
either  "  proctors  that  go  up  and  downe  with  counterfeit 
licences,  cosiners,  and  suche  as  go  about  the  countrey 
using  unlawfuU  games  "  ;  or  the  "  })roctors  "  especially 
and  particularly  mentioned  in  the  Statute  Edw.  VI.  c.  3, 
s.  19,  licensed  to  collect  alms  for  the  lepers  who  at  that 


120  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

time  were  still  numerous  in  England.  These  privileged 
beggars  were  deprived  of  their  immunity  from  arrest 
by  the  "  Act  for  Punishment  of  Rogues,  Vagabonds, 
and  Sturdie  Beggars  "  (39  EUz.  c.  4),  wherein  "  all 
persons  that  be,  or  utter  themselves  to  be  Proctors, 
procurers,  patent  gatherers,  or  collectors  for  gaols, 
prisons,  or  hospitals  "*  are,  together  with  "  all  Fencers, 
Bearewards,  common  players  of  Interludes,  and 
Minstrels  "  to  be  adjudged  Rogues  and  Vagabonds. 
Now  it  is  sufficiently  remarkable  that  this  Act  was 
passed  (perhaps  with  the  strenuous  help  of  Master 
Watts,  who  Avas  a  Member  of  Parliament,  and  who  we 
see  hated  proctors  so  ardently)  at  about  the  time  when 
the  "  Six  Poor  Travellers  "  was  built,  and  the  reasons 
for  refusing  admission  either  to  a  true  Proctor  of  a  lazar- 
house,  or  to  a  pretended  one,  must  be  sufficiently 
obvious. 

Master  Watts  entertained  the  Queen  at  his  house 
on  Boley  (?  Beaulieu)  Hill  on  the  last  day  of  her 
visit,  and  when  that  courtly  man  apologised  for  the 
"  poor  cottage  "  (he  didn't  mean  it,  but  'twas  the 
custom  so  to  do)  Her  Majesty  is  supposed  to  have 
graciously  answered  "  Satis,"  and  so  Satis  House  it 
remained,  and  the  hideous  building  that  now  stands 
upon  its  site  still  bears,  grotesquely  enough,  its  name. 

Quite  a  train  of  miscellaneous  Royalties  and 
celebrities  came  here  after  Elizabeth's  second  visit 
in  1582  ;  the  Duke  of  Sully  ;  James  the  First,  who 
angered  the  seafaring  population  because  he  didn't 
care  for  the  ships,  loved  hunting,  and  was  afraid  of 
the  cannon — James  the  First  again,  with  Christian 
the  Fourth  of  Denmark  and  Prince  Henry  ;  Prince 
Henry  by  himself  in  1611  ;  Frederick,  Elector  Palatine 
of  Bohemia  ;  Charles  the  First  on  two  occasions,  on 
the  second  of  which  "  the  trane-bands  .  .  .  scarmished 
in  warlike  manner  to  His  Majesties  great  content  "  ; 
the     French    Ambassador,     in     1641,     who     thought 

*  Collectors  for  "  Ho.-pital  Saturday  "  funds  come  within  the  meaning  of 
this  unrepealed  Act. 


PEPYS  121 

Rochester  was  chiefly  observable  on  account  of  its 
Bridge  "  furnished  with  high  raihngs,  that  drunkards, 
not  uncommon  here,  may  not  mix  water  with  their 
wine  "  ;  and  nineteen  years  later,  Charles  the  Second, 
on  his  "  glorious  and  never-to-be-forgotten  Restoracion." 

How  Charles  was  feted  here,  and  how  he  stayed  at 
the  beautiful  old  place  that  has  taken  the  name  of 
"  Restoration  House  "  from  this  visit,  these  pages 
cannot  tell ;    the  story  is  too  long. 

And  here,  in  the  name  of  all  that's  lewd  and  scandal- 
mongering,  comes  old  Pepys  again.  It  is  no  use  trying 
to  keep  him  out  of  one's  pages  :  suppress  him  at  one 
place,  and  he  recurs  unfailingly  at  another,  with  a 
worse  record  than  before.  I  discreetly  "  sat  on  "  him 
at  Deptford,  but  here  he  is  at  Rochester,  "  goin'  on 
hawful,"  to  quote  one  of  Dickens'  characters  (I  forget 
which,  and  the  society  of  so  many  Kings  and  Queens 
on  the  Dover  Road  is  so  fatiguing  that  I  have  neither 
sufficient  time  nor  energy  to  inquire). 

Well  then,  it  was  in  1667*  that  Mr.  Samuel  Pepys 
came  here,  and,  putting  up  at  the  "  White  Hart," 
strolled  into  the  Cathedral,  more  intent  upon  the 
architecture  than  the  doctrine,  it  would  seem  ;  for 
when  service  began  he  walked  out  into  the  fields,  and 
there  "  saw  Sir  F.  Clark's  pretty  seat."  And  so 
"  into  the  Cherry  Garden,  and  here  he  met  with  a 
young,  plain,  silly  shopkeeper  and  his  wife,  a  pretty 
young  woman,  and  I  did  kiss  her  !  "  And  after  this 
they  dined,  and  walked  in  the  fields  together  till 
dark,  "  and  so  to  bed,"  without  the  usual  "  God 
forgive  me  !  "  which,  considering  how  he  had  shirked 
the  Cathedral  service,  and  how  questionable  had  been 
his  conduct  in  the  Cherry  Garden,  was  more  needful 
than  ever,  one  would  think. 

Twenty-one  years  after  this  date  came  James  the 
Second  on  two  hurried  visits  to  Rochester  within  a  few 


*  He  was  here  also  in  1661,  giving  a  very  amnsing  account  of  how  he  was 
entertained,  and  how  lie  kissed  and  sang  and  danced  :  it  is  too  long,  though, 
for  quotation  here.     But  look  it  up. 


122 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


days  of  one  another.  If  lie  had  had  time,  and  had 
been  in  a  sufficiently  calm  frame  of  mind,  he  might 
have  reflected  on  the  vicissitudes  of  Kings  in  general, 


HIGH    STREET,   EOCHE   TEE  :     EASTGATE    HOUSE. 

and  of  his  own  Royal  House  in  ])articular  ;  but  being 
shockingly  upset,  and  in  a  mortal  terror  lest  he  should 
lose  his  head  as  thoroughly  in  a  physical  sense  as  he  had 
already  done  in  a  figurative  way  of  speaking,  he  lost 
that  opportunity  of  coolh^  reviewing  his  position  which, 
lu  d  it  but  been  seized,  would  have  led  him  to  return  to 
London  and  stay  there.  It  is  not  a  little  sad  to  reflect 
that,  had  the  gloomy  and  morose  James  not  been  a 
coward,  the  House  of  Stuart  might  still  have  ruled 
England.  At  any  rate,  men  did  not  love  the  taciturn 
Prince  of  Orange  and  his  Dutchmen  so  well  but  what 
they  would  have  gladly  done  without  him  and  have 
taken  back  their  King,  if  that  King  had  only  shown  a 


HOGARTH'S   SATIRES  125 

little  more  spirit  and  a  little  less  of  religious  bigotry. 
William  could  not  but  perceive  that  his  principles  and 
not  his  person  were  acclaimed,  and  when  he  gave  the 
King  leave  to  retire  to  Rochester,  he  both  knew  that 
James  desired  an  opportunity  to  escape  from  the 
kingdom,  and  hoped  he  would  use  it.  And  he  did  use 
the  chance  so  gladly  given  him,  secretl}^  departing  from 
Rochester  in  the  small  hours  of  a  December  morning, 
and  making  for  Ambleteuse  on  the  French  coast  in 
a  fishing- smack. 


XXIV 

This  was  the  last  romantic  event  that  befell  at 
Rochester,  and  it  fitly  closed  a  stirring  history. 

But  Chatham  and  Rochester,  although  outward 
romance  had  departed,  did  not  cease  to  be  interested 
in  naval  and  military  affairs.  Indeed,  they  have 
grown  continually  greater  on  them. 

It  was  in  1756  that  the  plates  of  England  and 
France  were  published  by  Hogarth.  We  were  suffering 
then  from  one  of  those  panic  fears  of  invasion  by  the 
French  to  which  this  country  has  been  periodically 
subject,  and  these  efforts  were  consequently  calculated 
to  have  a  large  sale.  Hogarth,  of  course,  after  his 
arrest  for  sketching  at  Calais,  was  morbidly,  vitriolically 
l^atriotic,  and  his  work  is  earnest  of  his  feelings. 
The  English  are  seen  drilling  in  the  background  of  the 
first  plate,  while  in  front  of  the  "  Duke  of  Cumberland  " 
inn  a  recruit  is  being  measured,  and  smiles  at  the 
caricature  of  the  King  of  France  which  a  grenadier  is 
])ainting  on  the  wall.  A  long  inscription  proceeds 
from  the  mouth  of  His  Most  Christian  Majesty,  "  You 
take  a  my  fine  ships,  you  be  de  Pirate,  you  be  de  Teef, 
me  send  you  my  grand  Armies,  and  hang  you  all, 
Morbleu,"  and  he  grasps  a  gibbet  to  emphasize  the 
words.  Meanwhile,  a  fifer  plays  "  God  Save  the  King  " ; 
a  soldier  in  the  group  has  placed  his  sword  across  a  great 


126  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

cheese  ;    and  a  sailor  has  ouarded  his  tankard  of  beer 
with  a  pistol. 

But  see  how  different  are  things  across  the  Channel. 
Outside  the  Sabot  Royal  a  party  of  French  grenadiers, 
lean  and  hungry-looking  after  their  poor  fare  of 
soiipe  vuiigre,  are  Avatching  one  of  their  number  cook 
the  sprats  he  has  spitted  on  his  sword.  A  monk  with  a 
grin  of  satisfaction  feels  the  edge  of  an  axe  which  he  has 
taken  from  a  cart  full  of  racks  and  other  engines  of 
torture  destined  towards  the  furnishing  of  a  monastery 
at  Blackfriars  in  London,  of  which  a  plan  is  seen  lying 
upon  this  heap  of  ironmongery  ;  and  a  file  of  soldiers 
may  be  seen  in  the  distance,  reluctantly  embarking  for 
England,  and  spurred  forward  by  the  point  of  the 
sergeant's  halberd.  Garrick  wrote  the  patriotic  verses 
that  went  with  this  picture,  and  you  may  see  from 
them  how  constantly  Englishmen  have  thought  the 
French  to  be  a  nation  of  lean  and  hungry  starvelings. 
That  is,  of  course,  as  absurd  as  the  unfailing  practice  of 
French  caricaturists  to  whom  the  t3q)ical  Englishman 
is  a  creature  who  has  red  hair  and  protruding  teeth, 
and  says  "  Goddam  " — 

With  lanthoni  jaws  and  croaking  gut. 
See  how  the  hah-starv'd  Frenchmen  strut, 

And  call  us  English  dogs  ; 
But  soon  we'll  teach  these  bragging  foes, 
That  beef  and  beer  give  heavier  blows 

Than  soup  and  roasted  frogs. 

The  priests,  inflam'd  with  righteous  hopes, 
Prepare  their  axes,  wheels,  and  ropes, 

To  bend  the  stiff-neck'd  sinner  : 
But,  should  they  sink  in  coming  over, 
Old  Nick  may  fish  'twixt  France  and  Dover, 

And  catch  a  glorious  dinner. 

FcAV  people,  as  Dickens  says,  can  tell  where  Rochester 
ends  and  Chatham  begins,  but  even  now  j^ou  become 
conscious  of  a  gradual  alteration  in  the  character  of  the 
street  as  you  leave  Rochester  High  Street  and  come 
imi^erceptibly  into  Chatham  ;  and  even  though  the 
place  has  grown  so  large,  and  holds  so  very  varied 
a  population  that  the  military  and  naval  sections  no 


CHATHAM  129 

longer  bulk  so  largely  as  they  used,  they  still  make  a 
brave  show.  An  inhabitant  of  Chatham  need  never 
wish  to  visit  London,  because  the  triple  towns  of 
Chatham,  Strood  and  Rochester — to  leave  out  all 
count  of  Gillingham  and  New  Brompton,  which  are  to 
Chatham  even  as  Hammersmith  is  to  our  own  great 
metropolis — contain  samples  of  nearly  all  that  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  Capital  of  the  Empire,  and  much  else 
besides.  There  is  a  Dockyard  at  Chatham  two  miles 
in  length,  from  which  there  issues  every  day  at  the 
dinner-hour  an  army  of  artificers  of  every  kind  and 
degree — many  thousands  of  them ;  and  in  this 
Dockyard  are  ironclads,  making,  repairing,  and  refitting 
together  with  vast  military  and  naval  stores,  and  all 
kinds  of  relics,  foremost  among  which  there  is  a  shed, 
full  of  old  and  historic  figure-heads  ;  all  that  is  left 
of  the  wooden  walls  that  were  such  efficient  bulwarks 
of  England's  power.  Agamemnons,  Arethiisas,  Beller- 
ophons  are  here,  and  many  more.  And  all  around 
are  forts  and  "  lines,"  barracks  and  military  hospitals  ; 
and  drilling,  manoeuvring,  marchings  and  counter- 
marchings,  and  all  kinds  of  military  exercises  are 
continually  going  forward.  The  names  of  streets, 
courts,  and  alleys,  would  furnish  a  very  Walhalla  of 
naval  heroes,  and  from  all  quarters  come  the  sounds  of 
riveting,  the  blasts  of  bugles,  and  the  shouting  of  the 
captains  ;  and  when  midday  comes  the  noontide  gun 
resounds  from  the  heights  of  Fort  Pitt,  and  all  the 
ragged  urchins  who  live  on  the  pavements  fall  down  as 
if  they  were  shot,  much  to  the  terror  of  old  ladies, 
strangers  in  these  parts,  who  pass  by. 

There  is  still  a  fine  old-time  nautical  flavour  hanging 
about  Chatham.  It  does  not  lie  on  the  surface,  but 
requires  much  patient  searching  amid  mean  and 
disreputable  streets,  and  it  is  only  after  passing 
through  slums  that  would  affright  a  resident  of 
Drury  Lane  that  one  finds  curiously  respectable  little 
terraces,  giving  upon  the  waterside,  mth  masts  and 
yards,  rigging,  derricks,   and  other  strange  seafaring 


130  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

tackle  peeping  over  the  roof-tops  ;  amphibious  corners 
where  a  smell  of  the  sea,  largely  intermixed  with 
odours  of  pitch,  tar,  and  rope,  clings  about  everything  ; 
where  men  with  a  nautical  lurch  come  swinging  along 
the  pavements,  and  where,  if  you  glance  in  at  the 
doorways  which  are  nearly  always  open  in  summer, 
you  will  see  full-rigged  models  of  ships  standing  on 
sideboards,  supported  perhaps  by  a  huge  Family  Bible, 
and  flanked,  most  certainly,  with  strange  outlandish 
shells,  branches  of  coral,  and  other  spoils  of  far-off  lands. 
But  these  things  are  not  patent  to  he  who  goes 
only  along  the  main  road,  turning  to  neither  right  nor 
left  ;  and  it  is  only  a  little  exploration  of  byways 
that  will  convince  you  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  summary 
remaining  still  substantially  correct.  "  The  princij^al 
productions  "  of  the  three  towns  of  Rochester,  Strood, 
and  Chatham,  according  to  Mr.  Pickwick,  "  appear  to  be 
soldiers,  sailors,  Jews,  chalk,  shrimps,  officers,  and 
dockyard-men.  The  commodities  chiefly  exposed  for 
sale  in  the  public  streets  are  marine-stores,  hardbake, 
apples,  flat-fish,  and  oysters."  All  of  which  might  well 
have  been  written  to-day,  so  closely  does  the  description 
still  apply  ;  but  when  he  goes  on  to  remark  that  "  the 
streets  present  a  lively  and  animated  appearance, 
occasioned  chiefly  by  the  conviviality  of  the  military," 
he  clearly  speaks  of  by-past  times.  "It  is  truly 
delightful,"  he  sa^^s,  "to  a  philanthropic  mind  to  see 
these  gallant  men  staggering  along  under  the  influence 
of  an  overflow,  both  of  animal  and  ardent  spirits." 
Delightful  indeed  !  But  since  those  days  Tommy 
Atkins  has  been  evolutionized  into  a  very  different 
creature. 

XXV 

To  plunge  into  mediaeval  legends  at  Chatham  will 
seem  the  strangest  of  transitions,  and  Chatham  Parish 
Church  will  appear  to  most  people  the  last  place  likely 
to  have  a  story.     Yet  in  demolishing  the  old  building  to 


OUR   LADY   OF   CHATHAM  133 

make  way  for  a  new,  the  workmen  found  some  frag- 
ments of  sculpture  which  had  a  history.  Amongst 
these  was  a  headless  group  of  the  Virgin  and  Child. 

This  was,  in  all  probability,  the  effigy  of  Our  Lady  of 
Chatham,  who,  in  pre-Reformation  times,  was  famous 
for  her  miracles  ;  and  of  whom  Lambarde  gives  the 
following  amusing  story  in  his  Perambulations : 
"  It  seems,"  says  he,  "  that  the  corps  of  a  man  (lost 
through  shipwracke  belike)  was  cast  on  land  in  the 
parishe  of  Chatham,  and  being  there  taken  up,  was  by 
some  charitable  persones  committed  to  honest  burial 
within  their  church-yard  ;  which  thing  was  no  sooner 
done,  but  Our  Lady  of  Chatham,  finding  herselfe 
offended  therewith,  arose  by  night  and  went  in  person 
to  the  house  of  the  parishe  clearke,  whiche  then  was 
in  the  streete,  a  good  distance  from  the  church,  and 
making  a  noj^se  at  his  window,  awaked  him.  The 
man,  at  the  first,  as  commonly  it  fareth  with  men 
disturbed  in  their  rest,  demanded,  somewhat  roughly, 
'  who  was  there  ?  '  But  when  he  understoode,  by  her 
OAvne  answer,  that  it  was  the  Lady  of  Chatham,  he 
changed  his  note,  and  moste  mildeley  asked  ye  cause  of 
her  comming  ;  she  tolde  him,  that  there  was  lately 
buryed  (neere  to  the  place  where  she  was  honoured) 
a  sinful  person,  which  so  offended  her  eye  with  his 
gastly  grinning,  that,  unless  he  were  removed,  she 
could  not  but  (to  the  great  griefe  of  good  people) 
withdrawe  herselfe  from  that  place,  and  cease  her 
wonted  miraculous  working  amongst  them  :  and 
therefore,  she  willed  him  to  go  with  her,  to  the  ende 
that,  by  his  helpe,  she  might  take  him  up,  and  caste 
him  again  into  the  river.  The  clearke  obeyed,  arose, 
and  waited  on  her  towarde  the  churche  ;  but  the  goode 
ladie  (not  wonted  to  walk)  waxed  wearie  of  the  labour, 
and  therefore  was  enforced,  for  very  want  of  breath, 
to  sit  downe  in  a  bushe  by  the  way,  and  there  to 
rest  her  :  and  this  place  (forsooth)  as  also  the  whole 
track  of  their  journey,  remaining  ever  after  a  greene 
pathe,  the  towne  dwellers  were  wont  to  shew.     Now, 


134  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

after  a  while,  they  go  forward  againe,  and  coming  to 
the  churcheyarde,  digged  up  the  body,  and  conveyed 
it  to  the  waterside,  where  it  was  first  found.  This  done, 
Our  Lady  shrancke  againe  into  her  shryne  ;  and  the 
clearke  peaked  home,  to  patche  up  his  broken  sleepe  ; 
but  the  corps  now  eftsoones  floted  up  and  down  the 
river,  as  it  did  before  ;  which  thing  being  espyed  by 
them  of  Gilhngham,  it  was  once  n^ore  taken  up,  and 
buryed  in  their  churcheyarde.  But  see  wliat  followed 
upon  it  ;  not  only  the  roode  of  Gillingham  (say  they), 
that  a  while  before  was  busie  in  bestowing  m3Tacles, 
was  now  deprived  of  all  that  his  former  virtue  ;  but 
also  ye  very  earth  and  place  where  this  carckase  was 
laid,  did  continually,  for  ever  after,  settle  and  sinke 
downewarde." 

Barham  has  made  good  use  of  this  story,  you  who 
have  read  the  legend  of  Grey  Dolphin  in  the  Ingoldshy 
Legends  Avill  remember.  He  narrates,  with  a  joyous 
irreverence,  how,  in  consequence  of  the  miraculous 
interposition  of  the  Lady  of  Chatham  (Saint  Bridget, 
forsooth  !  "  who,  after  leading  but  a  so-so-life,  had  died 
in  the  odour  of  sanctity  ")  masses  were  sung,  tapers 
kindled,  bells  tolled,  and  how  everything  thenceforward 
was  wonderment  and  devotion  ;  the  monks  of  Saint 
Romwold  in  solemn  procession,  the  abbot  at  their 
head,  the  sacristan  at  their  tail,  and  the  holy  breeches 
of  Saint  Thomas  a  Becket  in  the  centre.  "  Father 
Fothergill  brewed  a  XXX  puncheon  of  holy  water," 
continues  Tom  Ingoldsby,  clerk  in  holy  orders  and 
minor  canon  of  the  Cathedral  of  Saint  Paul,  indulging 
at  once  his  exuberant  humour  and  his  contemjot  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  with  its  relics,  miracles,  bone-chests, 
and  sanctified  aqua  imra.  Meanwhile,  the  grinning 
sailor,  "  grinning  more  than  ever,"  had  drifted  down 
the  river,  off  Gillingham,  and  lay  on  the  shore  in  all  the 
majesty  of  mud,  presently  to  be  discovered  by  the 
minions  of  Sir  Robert  de  Shurland,  who  bade  them 
"  turn  out  his  pockets."  But  it  was  ill  gleaning  after 
the  double  scrutiny  of  Father  Fothergill  and  the  parish 


PAID     OFF    AT     CHATHAM. 

After  a  Painting  bi/  R.  Deightnv,  R.A. 


"  JEZREEL  "  137 

clerk  ;    and,  as  Ingoldsby  observes,  "  there  was  not  a 
single  maravedi." 

From  Saint  Bridget  to  a  weird,  but  yet  not  altogether 
unworldly,  fanatic  of  recent  years  the  transition  would 
not  be  easy,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  said 
fanatic's  hideous  temple  still  crowns  Chatham  Hill  for 
all  men  to  see,  as  a  monument  of  the  unfathomed  and 
unfathomable  credulity  of  mankind.  The  stranger  who 
walks  or  cycles  his  way  to  Dover  is  told  that  this 
barrack-like  building  is  "  Jezreel's  Temple,"  and  that  is 
about  the  extent  of  the  information  forthcoming. 
The  unredeemed  ugliness  of  the  unfinished  temple  is  at 
once  repellant  and  exciting  to  curiosity,  and  the 
name  of  "  Jezreel  "  wears  such  an  Old  Testament  air 
that  most  people  who  pass  by  want  very  much  to 
know  who  and  what  he  was. 

He  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  private  soldier  of  the 
16th  Regiment,  named  James  White,  who,  having  been 
bought  out  of  the  Army  by  the  members  of  a  fanatical 
sect  before  whom  he  posed  as  a  prophet,  took  the 
extraordinary  names  of  "  James  Jershom  Jezreel," 
and,  with  seventeen  followers,  founded  a  new  sect, 
the  New  House  of  Israel,  known  by  scoffers  as  the 
"  Joannas."  They  were,  in  fact,  mad  enthusiasts 
like  those  whom  Joanna  Southcott  had  fooled,  years 
before,  and  it  is  supposed  that  White  took  the  name  of 
"  Jezreel  "  from  the  Book  of  Hosea,  adding  the  other 
names  to  make  a  trinity  of  initial  "  J's,"  allusive  to  the 
Prophetess  Joanna  and  her  minor  prophet,  John  Wroe. 

Not  that  "  Jezreel  "  was  mad.  Not  at  all.  To  him 
as  Prophet  and  Patriarch  of  these  New  Israelites  was 
given  up  the  whole  property  of  those  who  entered  the 
House,  to  be  held  in  common  ;  and  he  made  a  very 
good  thing  of  the  infatuation  of  the  hundreds  of  wealthy 
middle-class  converts  who  had  a  fancy  for  this  singular 
kind  of  communistic  religion.  It  was  an  article  of  his 
followers'  creed  that  they  were  the  first  portion  of 
the  144,000,  twice  told,  who  will  receive  Christ  when  he 
comes    again    to    reign    a    thousaixl    years    on   earth. 


13S  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

To  support  his  character  as  leader  of  this  House, 
"  Jezreel  "  pretended  to  have  received  a  communication 
from  a  messenger  of  God,  who  inspired  him  to  write  an 
extraordinary  farrago  of  Bibhcal  balderdash,  without 
argument,  beginning,  or  end,  called  the  "  Flying  Roll." 
The  curious  may  obtain  three  volumes  of  this  nonsense, 
but  the  only  preternatural  thing  in  these  books  of 
Extracts  from  the  Flying  Roll  is  their  gross  and 
unapproachable  stupidity  which  completely  addles  the 
brain  of  him  who  reads  them,  hoping  thereby  to 
discover  the  tenets  of  the  sect  or  any  single  thread  of 
argument  that  may  be  followed  for  more  than  a 
consecutive  prragraph  or  two.  The  effect  upon  one 
reading  those  pages  is  the  same  as  that  which  Mark 
Twain  tells  us  was  produced  on  him  when  Art  emus 
Ward,  having  plied  him  with  strong  drink,  began 
purposely  to  enter  upon  a  preposterous  conversation, 
having  a  specious  air  of  a  grave  and  lucid  argument,  but 
which  was  merely  an  idiotic  string  of  meaningless 
sentences.  Mark  Twain  thought  himself  had  gone 
daft,  and  felt  his  few  remaining  senses  going  ;  and 
that  is  just  what  happens  to  any  one  who  sits  down 
and  seriously  tries  to  understand  what  "  Jezreel's  " 
Extracts  are  all  about. 

In  1879,  "  Jezreel  "  married  Clarissa  Rogers,  the 
daughter  of  a  New  Brompton  sawyer  ;  and,  assuming 
the  name  of  "  Queen  Esther,"  she  paid  a  visit,  with  the 
prophet,  to  America.  This  precious  pair  made  an 
extraordinary  number  of  converts  in  their  preaching 
tours,  and,  returning  to  England,  made  Gillingham  the 
headquarters  of  their  New  House  of  Israel.  Schools 
and  twenty  acres  of  various  buildings  were  built  there 
at  a  cost  of  £100,000,  and  the  "  Temple,"  intended  to 
hold  20,000  people,  was  commenced  on  Chatham  Hill. 
But  "  Jezreel  "  died  in  1885,  chiefly  of  drink  and  the 
effects  of  sunstroke,  before  this  work  could  be  completed 
and  the  zealots,  who  were  wont  to  go  about  with  long 
hair  tucked  under  purple-veh^et  caps,  began  to  wake 
up  to  a  sense  not  only  of  their  sumptuary  folly,  but  also 


JEZREEL'S   TOWER  139 

of  the  phenomenal  simpheity  which  they  had  exhibited 
in  giving  up  their  j^roperty  to  the  House.  "  Queen 
Esther  "  was  incapable  of  fooling  these  simple  folk 
as  completely  as  "  Jezreel  "  had  done,  and  minor 
prophets  sprang  up  to  dispute  her  sovereignty  over 
the  elect.  Perhaps  they  were  jealous  of  the  state  in 
which  this  quondam  sawyer's  daughter  drove  about  in  a 
carriage  and  pair,  attended  by  liveried  servants. 
Perhaps  also  they  had  visions  and  Divine  inspirations. 
At  any  rate,  "  Queen  Esther  "  presently  drooped,  and 
died  in  1888,  in  her  twenty-eighth  year  ;  whereupon 
the  sect  swiftly  collapsed  under  the  rival  seers  who 
followed.  Lawsuits  succeeded  to  the  fine  religious 
frenzy  in  which  the  "  Temple  "  was  raised,  and  it 
still  stands  unfinished,  visible  on  its  hilltop  over  a 
great  part  of  Chatham.  It  would  be  a  pity  to  pull 
it  down,  or  to  complete  it ;  or,  indeed,  to  do  anything 
at  all  to  it,  for,  as  it  is  now,  it  furnishes  perhaps  as 
eloquent  a  sermon  on  human  wickedness  and  folly 
as  could  well  be  delivered. 

The  great  tower,  framed  in  steel  and  built  of  yellow 
brick  with  ornamental  lines  of  blue  Staffordsliire  brick, 
has  stone  panels  carved  with  a  trumpet  with  a  scroll, 
"  The  Flying  Roll,"  suspended  from  it ;  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales  feathers  and  the  motto  "  I  serve,"  and 
other  devices.  The  unfinished  tower  itself  cost  £44,000. 
The  foundation-stone  was  laid,  as  an  inscription  savs, 
19th  September,  1885,  "  by  Mrs.  Emma  Cave,  on  behalf 
of  the  144,000.     Revelations  {sic)  7th,  4." 

It  was  understood  that  ^Irs.  Cave,  who  at  that  time 
owned  a  large  part  of  Tufnell  Park,  found  the  money  for 
the  tower,  selling  her  pro}:)erty  for  the  cause.  The 
unfinished  tower  was  seized  by  the  building  contractors 
for  debt,  and  offered  for  sale  by  auctioneers,  who  stated 
it  "  would  do  for  a  lunatic  asylum,  prison,  infirmary, 
etc."  This  suggestion  failed,  and  the  contractors, 
unable  to  sell  the  incomplete  carcase,  let  it  to  the  sect 
under  a  lease,  which  terminated  in  1905.  There  were 
at  that  time  Jezreelite  workrooms  and  printing-offices 


140  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

in  the  basement.  An  American  Jezreelite  then 
appeared,  one  Michael  Keyfor  Mills,  calling  himself 
"  Prince  Michael,"  and  proposing  to  complete.  The 
founder's  father-in-law,  Edward  Rogers,  who  had  rented 
the  place  as  a  wholesale  grocery  warehouse,  opposed 
him  and  secured  an  injunction  against  members  of  the 
sect  who  had  supported  the  idea.  Mills  died  at 
Gillingham  in  January,  1922,  aged  sixty-five. 

In  1908  a  company  was  formed  to  demolish  the 
building  and  sell  the  materials  ;  but  when  the  upper 
floors  had  been  taken  down  the  concern  became 
insolvent.  In  1913  it  was  proposed  to  convert  the 
building  into  a  "  Picture  Palace,"  but  the  idea  came  to 
nothing ;  and  later,  the  property  was  offered  at 
auction  and  withdrawn  at  £3,900. 

If  there  be  any  surviving  Jezreelites  of  the  "  New  and 
Latter  House  of  Israel,"  who  believe  that  the  souls  of 
only  those  who  have  lived  since  Moses  can  be  saved, 
they  will  be  able  to  look  with  satisfaction  on  the 
remains  of  their  tower,  which  was  built  largely  with  the 
idea  that  five  thousand  of  the  elect  would  gather  here 
at  the  destruction  of  the  world. 

But  in  its  present  condition  a  good  many  of  that 
number  would  be  left  outside  ;  and  there  might  be 
expected  an  unseemly  crush  to  get  within,  only  that  by 
this  time  the  elect  of  this  particular  brand  must  be  a 
very  small  coterie. 


XXVI 

Little  else  is  to  be  seen  or  noted  in  leaving  Chatham 
for  Rainham.  The  shop  in  Avhich  that  singular  old 
gentleman  lived,  with  whom  little  David  Copperfield 
made  acquaintance,  is  not  pointed  out  to  the  curious, 
and  the  identity  of  that  apostrophizer  of  his  lungs  and 
liver,  who  exclaimed  "  Goroo,  goroo,"  and  tearfully 
asked  David  if  he  would  go  for  fourpence,  has  been 
much  disputed.     "  The  House  on  the  Brook,"  to  which 


UPCHURCH  WARE  141 

the  Dickens  family  removed  when  Mr.  John  Dickens' 
fortunes  were  low,  is  still  to  be  seen,  but  "  the  Brook  " 
has  changed  for  the  worse,  and  the  visitor  to  Chatham 
who  takes  up  the  local  papers  will  discover  that  it  is 
pre-eminently  the  place  where  the  Order  of  the  Black 
Eye  is  conferred,  on  Saturday  nights  in  especial,  but 
more  or  less  impartially  throughout  the  week. 

It  is  not  before  Rainham  is  reached  that  the  road 
becomes  once  more  the  open  highway.  Moor  Street 
is  passed,  and  here  the  Rainham  orchards  and  the 
cherry  orchards  of  Gillingham  begin  to  stretch  away 
to  the  levels  of  the  Upchurch  marshes.  "  Wealth 
without  health  "  begins  to  be  the  characteristic  of 
the  country,  for  the  marsh  mists  hang  over  the  levels 
from  early  evening,  through  the  night,  to  almost 
midday  ;  and  agues,  asthma,  and  bronchial  complaints 
are  the  common  lot.  Many  miles'  length  of  submerged 
Roman  pottery-works  lie  down  in  those  Swale  and 
Cooling  marshes,  and  many  have  been,  and  are  still, 
the  "  finds  "  of  broken  black  "  Upchurch  ware  "  in  the 
mud  and  ooze.  Perfect  specimens  are  discovered  at 
rarer  intervals.  The  proper  method  of  searching  for 
these  vestiges  of  the  Roman  occupation  is  to  equip 
one's  self  ^\ith  a  stout  pair  of  sea-boots,  and  a 
"  sou'wester,"  and  to  wade  at  low  tide  in  the  creeks, 
probing  the  slimy  mud  with  iron  rods.  If  the  explorer 
is  fortunate  in  his  "  pitch  "  he  will  discover  pottery, 
broken  or  whole,  by  feeling  his  iron  rod  strike  some- 
thing harder  than  the  surrounding  half-liquid  cla}^ 
The  joy  of  such  exquisite  moments  is  unfortunately 
sometimes  marred  by  the  "  find  "  being  but  a  lump  of 
half-baked  clay  ;  Roman,  indeed,  but  not  worthy  of 
preservation.  Still,  when  fragments  of  patterned  ware 
are  found,  the  discovery  repays  in  interest  for  the  time 
spent  in  mudlarking. 

Rainham  Church  heralds  the  village,  raising  up  its 
white  and  four-square  battlemented  walls  from  beside 
the  road.  A  large  building,  vnth  a  few  late  brasses  ; 
a  vault  full  of  Tuftons,  Earls  of  Thanet,  of  whom  the 


142  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

last  died  in  1863,  unmarried  ;  and  two  life-sized 
marble  statues  of  Tuftons,  father  and  son,  in  that 
curious  classic  conve  ition  of  the  late  seventeenth 
century  which  found  such  a  delight  in  representing 
distinguished  folk  as  Roman  warriors.  Nicholas  Tufton, 
the  earl,  and  his  son,  Avho  died  from  wounds  received 
in  battle,  are  those  thus  represented  here  ;  and  the 
statue  of  the  son,  scupltured  in  a  sitting  position, 
is  a  really  fine  work  of  art.  Beyond  this,  Rainham  has 
not  much  to  detain  the  explorer,  and  being  a  summer 
rendezvous  for  Chatham  pleasure-parties  and  bean- 
feasters,  it  is  apt  to  become  dusty  and  riotous  when  the 
season  of  annual  outings  is  at  hand. 

The  church  seen  some  distance  to  the  left  of  the 
road  is  that  of  Newington.  In  the  \'cstry  is  displayed 
a  copy  of  the  last  will  and  testament  of  Simon  Tomlin, 
dated  November  13,  1689.  In  this  disposition  of  his 
worldl}^  effects  are  gifts  to  relatives  and  to  the  poor  ; 
and  to  his  brother-in-law,  William  Plawe  of  Stockbury, 
he  leaves  "  my  best  beaver  hatt  and  the  sum  of  £15, 
lawful  money  of  England."  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
legatee  got  his  hat,  but,  as  many  provisions  of  the  will 
do  not  appear  to  have  been  complied  with,  it  seems 
doubtful. 

There  was  a  priory  of  nuns  established  at  Newington 
in  early  Norman  times,  but  all  that  is  now  left  of  it  is  a 
striking  legend  which  proves  that  when  these  pious 
ladies  retired  from  the  world  they  brought  some  of  the 
world's  worst  characteristics  with  them.  What  they 
quarrelled  about  one  night  will  never  now  be  known, 
but  when  the  morning  dawned  the  Prioress  was  found 
strangled  in  her  bed  ;  which  goes  to  prove  that  the  veil 
no  more  goes  to  make  the  nun  tlian  orders  black,  white, 
or  grey  furnish  a  monk  fully  forth  in  true  monastic 
attributes.  A  clialk  pit,  about  a  mile  south  of  the 
church,  called  significantly  "  Nun-pit,"  is  shown  as  the 
place  where  those  less  holy  than  homicidal  sisters  were 
afterwards  buried  alive.  Other  accounts  say  that 
these    nuns    were    removed    to    Minster,    in    Sheppey. 


NEWINGTON  143 

However  that  may  be,  Heiir}^  the  Second  would  have 
no  more  nuns  here.  He  placed  seven  priests  in  the 
Prior}^  as  secular  canons,  and  gave  them  the  manor, 
hoping  that  this  religious  house  would  in  future  have 
a  less  lurid  career.  But  things,  instead  of  improving, 
grew  wcrse.  One  of  the  canons  was  found  murdered  in 
his  bed,  and  four  of  the  brethren  were  convicted  of  the 
crime. 

From  these  queer  stories  we  come,  appropriately 
enough,  to  a  tale  in  which  the  Enemy  bears  a  brave 
})art.  AVhen  Newington  Church  was  being  built, 
"  ever  so  long  ago,"  as  the  tale  of  gramarye  has  it, 
and  the  time  came  for  the  bells  to  be  himg,  the  Devil, 
who,  it  is  well  known,  hates  the  sound  of  church  bells, 
conceited  the  grand  plan  of  pushing  the  tower  o>'er,  so 
that  the  builders  would  give  up  the  idea.  Accordingly, 
he  ventured  down  the  lane  one  night,  and,  standing  in 
the  churchyard  — as  he  could  well  do,  because  the  place 
was  not  yet  consecrated — placed  his  back  against  the 
tower,  and,  putting  his  feet  against  a  wall  on  the  other 
side  of  the  road,  pushed.  No  one  knows  what  was  the 
result,  but  as  there  is  a  tower  here  to  this  day — and 
a  very  fine  one  it  is,  too — it  may  be  presumed  that 
either  Satan  had  altogether  overrated  his  strength, 
or  that  the  builders  had  built  better  than  they  knew. 
But  if  the  Enemy  failed  in  this,  he  at  least  succeeded 
in  leaving  his  mark.  Accordingly,  here  is  the  wall, 
and  in  it  is  a  stone,  and  in  that  stone  is  a  hole  made 
by  his  toes  ;  while  on  another  stone  is  the  print  of  a  very 
fine  and  large  boot-sole — valuable  evidence,  because  it 
not  only  proves  the  truth  of  the  story  but  also  shows  us 
that  the  De^il  wore  a  Blucher  boot  on  one  foot  and  let 
the  other  go  unshod.  If  you  ask  me  how  it  came 
about  that  the  Devil  could  come  here  in  the  fourteenth 
century  wearing  a  nineteenth-century  boot,  I  must 
quote  the  showman  who  exhibited  a  wax  model  of 
Daniel  in  the  lions'  den.  Daniel  was  seen  to  be 
reading  the  Times,  and  some  one  in  the  crowd  pointed 
out    the    incongruous    circumstance,    to    which    the 


lU  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

showman  replied  that  Daniel,  being  a  prophet,  read  the 
Times  by  anticipation  !  And  if  a  saint  could  anticipate 
the  nineteenth  century  in  newspapers,  why  should  not 
the  Fiend  do  the  same  in  boots  ? 

Peaceful  cherry  orchards  stretch  along  the  narrow 
valley,  and  the  railway  runs  through  them,  giving 
glimpses  to  passengers  of  long  rows  of  cherry  trees 
with  emerald  grass  flecked  with  sunlight  and  flocks 
of  sheep  feeding  under  the  boughs  ;  and  picturesque 
farmsteads  standiniy  in  midst  of  fertile  meads. 


XXVII 

The  village  of  Newington  stands  on  either  side  of  the 
old  Dover  Road,  w^hich  is  here  identical  with  the  famous 
Roman  military  via  of  Watling  Street.  It  is  situated 
in  the  centre  of  a  district  covered  thickly  with  Roman 
remains,  and  the  village  itself  dates  from  Saxon  times, 
when  it  really  was  a  "  new  town  "  as  distinguished 
from  the  adjacent  ruins  of  the  ancient  Roman  station 
of  Durolevum.  All  the  ingenuity  of  archaeologists  has 
been  insufficient  to  determine  at  what  particular  spot 
this  military  post  was  established.  Judde  Hill, 
Sittingbourne,  and  Bapchild  have  been  selected  as 
probable  sites  of  Durolevum,  and  certainly  Bapchild 
and  Sittingbourne  are  likely  places  for  the  original 
military  post  mentioned  in  the  Itinerary  of  Antoninus. 
Both  are  situated  within  an  easy  distance  of  the 
measurements  given  by  the  itinerist,  and  at  either  place 
there  w^as  anciently  a  stream  of  water  crossing  the  road, 
sufficient,  perhaps,  to  warrant  the  prefix  of  "  Duro," 
which,  almost  without  exception,  distinguishes  the 
Roman  military  place-names  on  the  Dover  Road. 
That  prefix  was  the  Latini/ed  form  of  the  Celtic 
"  dour,"  signifying  a  stream,  and  it  is  met  with  at  : — 

Dubris  =  Dover. 

Durovernum  =  Canterbury, 

Durolevum  =  ?  Bapcliild,  Sittingbourne,  or  Ospriiige. 

DurobriviB  =  Rochester. 


ROMAN   STATIONS  145 

A  military  expedition  would  naturally  be  encamjied 
beside  a  stream,  where  the  cavalry  could  water  their 
horses,  in  preference  to  a  waterless  district ;  and 
therefore,  Newino^ton  and  Judde  Hill,  which  both 
stand  beyond  an  easy  reach  of  flo^\ing  water,  cannot 
have  such  good  claims  to  ha\'e  been  the  site  of  Duro- 
levum  as  either  Sittingbourne,  or  Bapchild,  whose 
name,  indeed,  is  a  corruption  of  the  Saxon  Beccanceld, 
"  the  pool  of  the  springs."  The  flow  of  water  through- 
out the  country  must  in  those  remote  times  have  been 
much  greater  than  now,  for  dense  forests  then  covered 
a  great  part  of  the  island,  and  induced  rains  and 
moisture.  In  fact,  the  Dover  Road  was  until  recent 
years  remarkable  for  the  number  of  considerable 
streams  and  trickling  rills  that  flowed  across  it,  either 
under  bridges  or  across  fords,  and  it  is  not  so  long 
since  those  that  crossed  the  highway  at  Sittingbourne 
and  Bapchild  were  diverted  or  dried  up.  They  must 
have  been  broad  streams  when  Caesar  led  his  legionaries 
up  the  rough  British  trackway  in  pursuit  of  the  Cantii, 
and  the  still  very  considerable  brook  that  crosses  the 
road  at  Ospringe  would  have  then  attained  the 
dimensions  of  a  river.  It  might  be  well  to  look  to 
Ospringe  for  the  original  Durolevum,  for  the  situation 
must  have  been  admirable  from  a  military  point  of 
view  ;  and,  moreover,  it  was  near,  if  not  then  actually 
on,  the  head  of  a  navigable  creek  leading  directly  to 
the  sea,  where  Faversham  now  stands. 

But  when  archaeologists  leave  the  consideration  of 
Caesar's  and  his  successors'  military  station  and  seek  the 
site  of  Durolevum  to^Mi  or  city,  they  unaccountably 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  this  Roman  province  of 
Britannia  Prima  was  obviously  Aery  populous,  and 
that  Durolevum,  instead  of  being  a  small  isolated  town, 
must  needs  have  been  the  centre  of  a  thickl}^  populated 
district  of  smaller  towns,  hamlets,  and  outlying  villas, 
stretching  for  miles  along  the  now  solitary  reaches  of 
the  Dover  Road,  and  reaching  down  to  the  Upchurch 
marshes. 


146  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

The  era  of  the  Roman  colonization  of  Britain  is  so 
remote  that  few  antiquaries  even  ever  stop  awhile  to 
consider  how  long  those  hardy  aliens  occupied  this 
island,  or  how  effective  that  occupation  was,  either 
in  a  military  or  social  sense.  Four  hundred  years 
just  measure  the  length  of  time  the  Romans  were  with 
us  ;  and  what  can  not  be  done  in  so  lengthy  a  period  ! 
Four  hundred  years  would  suffice  to  create  a  high  state 
of  civilization  from  mere  savagery,  and  that  is  what  the 
Romans  accomplished  here  in  that  space  of  time. 
They  not  only  conquered,  but  they  eventually  pacified, 
the  fierce  and  fearless  Britons  ;  and  they  established 
export  and  import  trades  that  rendered  Britain  the 
most  prosperous  colony  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  the 
Romano-British  merchants  and  people  the  wealthiest 
colonists  of  those  times.  Stately  villas  beyond  the 
towns,  but  sufficiently  near  them  to  invoke,  if  needs 
were,  the  protection  of  the  cohorts,  rose  up  on  all  sides, 
where  the  rich  traders  in  British  produce  took  their  ease 
or  engaged  themselves  in  cultivating  the  cherry  and 
sweet-chestnut  trees  which  they  had  introduced  from 
the  sunny  hillsides  of  Italy.  There  is  to  this  day  a 
manor  at  Milton-next- Sittingbourne  called  "  North- 
wood  Chasteners,"  so  called  from  an  ancient  grove 
of  chestnuts  (castaneas),  the  descendants  of  the  first 
chestnut  trees  introduced  by  the  Romans.  Vast 
Roman  potteries  had  their  being  in  the  lowlands 
beside  the  Medway ;  Upchurch,  Faversham,  and 
Richborough  furnished  the  tables  of  Roman  Emperors 
and  epicures  with  the  "  native  "  oysters  that  were 
even  then  famous  and  the  cause  of  an  immense  trade  ; 
while  manufactures  poured  in  from  Rome  to  suit  the 
British  taste. 

Durolevum  must,  then,  be  sought  amid  the  potsherds 
of  a  hundred  settlements,  any  one  of  which  might  have 
been  a  suburb  of  that  forgotten  station  ;  but  the  site 
where  the  present  village  of  Newington  stands  was 
probably  fresh  ground  when  the  Saxons  came  and  drove 
out  with  ruthless  slaughter  the  luxurious  and  enervated 


ROMAN   STATIONS  147 

Romanized  British,  who  speedily  tell  a  prey  to  barbar- 
ians when  once  the  Roman  garrison  was  withdrawn. 
Archaeologists  have  remarked  that  the  Saxons  generally 
occupied  the  Roman  towns  that  were  left  after  the 
Romano-British  fled  from  them  ;  but  although  they 
sometimes  did  so,  there  are  many  instances  where  they 
established  towns  on  new  sites  closely  adjoining  the 
old,  but  carefully  separated  from  them.  Such  was  the 
case  at  AYroxeter,  where  the  Saxons  built  an  entirely 
new  town,  adjoining,  but  not  actually  on,  the  ruined 
and  deserted  city  of  Uriconium.  Probably  the 
Saxons  found  Durolevum  wrecked  in  the  internal 
struggles  that  rent  Britain  asunder  after  the  legionaries 
were  withdrawn  ;  and,  being  a  Pagan  and  superstitious 
people,  they  shunned  the  almost  deserted  heap  of  ruins 
as  being  the  abode  of  evil  spirits.  The  stagnant  and 
fetid  wreck  of  a  great  city,  whose  fallen  houses  covered 
the  bodies  of  many  slaughtered  citizens,  and  whose 
site  was  very  likely  overflowed  with  choked  drains  and 
freshets  from  the  swollen  streams,  was  not  exactly  the 
place  to  appeal  to  strangers,  even  though  uncivilized, 
as  a  suitable  site  for  dwelling  upon  ;  and,  indeed,  it  may 
readily  be  imagined  that  these  rotting  remains  of  a  dead 
civilization  would  be  infinitely  more  awe-inspiring 
to  a  barbaric  race  than  to  the  few  remaining  Britons 
who  had  seen  the  place  in  all  the  pride  and  circumstance 
of  better  days.  And,  indeed,  the  black,  polluted  earth 
of  a  long-inhabited  town,  and  the  will-o' -wisps  and 
phosphorescent  bubbles  bred  from  the  corruption 
below,  that  would  float  at  night  uj^on  the  surface  of  the 
Avater,  would  have  frighted  most  people  of  those 
superstitious  times. 

Newington  stands  on  elevated  ground,  away  from 
such  chances,  but  in  its  immediate  neighbourhood  have 
been  found  many  Roman  relics,  and  all  around,  the 
fields,  the  meadows,  and  the  hillsides  are  rich  in  legends 
and  broken  pottery.  Standard  Hill  is  so  called  from  a 
tradition  that  the  Roman  eagle  was  there  displayed, 
and  a  field  adjoining  is  known  as  Crockfield,  from  the 


148 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


<i;rcat  number  of  Roman  })ots  and  fragments  of  pottery 
turned  up  there  by  the  plough.  Tlie  name  of  Keycol 
Hill,  too,  is  said  to  have  had  a  Roman  origin,  and 
Hasted  derives  it  from  Caii  Collis,  or  Caius  Julius 
Cyesar's  Hill.  Finally,  the  modern  roadside  hamlet  of 
Key  Street,  between  Newington  and  Sittingbourne,  is 
said  to  owe  its  name  to  Caii  Stratuvi,  or  Caius  Street. 
The  inn  at  Key  Street,  now  ealled  the  "  Key,"  was 
previously  to  1733  known  as  the  "  Ship."  It  stands 
near  the  hill-top  where  Key  Street  eommences,  and 
commands  a  long,   straight  dip  of  the  road  towards 


KEY    STREET. 


Sittingbourne,  whose  outlying  houses  are  just  beyond 
the  farthest  clump  of  trees. 

The  chance  wayfarer  little  thinks  how  abundant 
are  the  vestiges  of  antiquity  here,  both  in  fragments  of 
pottery,  and  in  the  time-honoured  names  of  manors, 
fields,  and  meadows.  Such  things  are  only  to  be 
brought  to  light  by  the  painstaking  local  historian 
who  has  access  to  Court  Rolls  and  ancient  estate  maps. 
It  is  little  known  or  considered  by  the  dwellers  in 
populous  towns  that  almost  every  meadow,  field,  croft, 
pasture,  down,  or  woodland  has  its  name,  as  distinct 


PLACE-NAMES  149 

and  as  well-known  locally  as  that  of  any  London  street 
included  in  the  Directory.  More  than  this,  these 
names  are  often  the  survivals  of  a  state  of  things 
existing  a  thousand  years  ago.  They  are  frequently 
rendered  obscure  by  the  corruption  and  evolution  of 
languages,  and  by  the  physical  changes  that  have  come 
over  the  face  of  the  country  during  so  long  a  period  ; 
but  with  research,  and  linguistic  scholarship,  and  a 
knowledge  both  of  local  history  and  the  ancient 
history  of  the  country  in  general,  much  that  seems  at 
first  obscure,  or  even  utterly  inexplicable,  may  be 
finally  resolved  into  meaning.  The  study  of  these 
place-names  has  all  the  attraction  of  original 
exploration,  and  leads  on  inexhaustibly.  But  while 
the  tracking  of  apparently  meaningless  names  to  their 
origin  has  all  the  fascination  of  sport,  it  gives  rise  to 
many  hazardous  conjectures  and  lame  conclusions,  and 
names  that  do  not  yield  their  secrets  to  patient  inquiry 
are  too  often  thrust  into  some  ill-fitting  category  from 
which  they  are  rescued,  to  the  shame  and  deiision  of 
those  who  placed  them  there.  In  fine,  "  cock-sureness  " 
is  nowhere  more  out  of  place  than  in  these  inquiries, 
and  in  nothing  else  is  the  mental  effort  of  "  jumping 
to  conclusions  "  met  with  such  ludicrous  accidents. 
It  has,  for  instance,  long  been  a  commonplace  in  these 
inquiries  to  refer  the  names  of  towns,  villages,  or 
hamlets  ending  in  "  ing  "  to  the  settlements  of  Saxon 
patriarchal  tribes  ;  and  the  Hallings,  Coolings, 
Bobbings,  Detlings,  and  Wellings  are  set  down  as 
having  been  originally  the  homes  of  Teutonic  clans 
taking  their  names  from  chieftains  named  Halla, 
Coela,  Bobba,  and  so  forth. 

But  while  this  rule  may  generally  hold  good,  it  must 
not  be  applied  automatically,  and  the  "  learning  "  that 
has  given  this  origin  to  the  names  of  Sittingbourne, 
Newington,  and  Ospringe  must  be  regarded  as  a 
grotesque  exercise  of  imagination,  creating  previously 
unheard-of  clans,  the  Soedingas,  the  Newingas,  and  the 
Osprings,   who  are  not  only  new  to  archaeology,   but 


150  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

probably  have  never  existed.  Of  course,  in  the  utter 
absence  of  all  evidence,  save  that  of  the  places  them- 
selves so  named,  no  statement  can  be  proved  correct  ; 
but  these  mystic  Soedingas  may  almost  certainly  be 
dismissed  to  the  realm  of  fairy-tales,  and  if  there  ever 
was  a  tribe  of  Newingas,  they  took  their  name  from  the 
village  which  they  built  and  where  they  lived,  instead 
of  giving  it  to  the  place.  Where  others  have  come  to 
grief,  it  would  be  rash  to  seek  new  derivations  ;  but  it 
seems  evident  that  Ospringe  derives  its  name  from  the 
stream  flowing  through  the  village,  and  that  the  name 
of  Sittingbourne  is  nothing  other  than  "  seething 
burn,"  or  "  the  bubbling  brook,"  a  poetic  name  which 
the  place  no  longer  merits.  Place-names  of  Roman 
origin  may  be  sought  in  the  several  Vigos  that  exist, 
some  now  the  names  of  fields,  marshes,  roadsides, 
and  commons  where  there  is  not  a  house  to  be  seen, 
but  which  were  originally  the  sites  of  Roman  villages, 
the  name  of  "  Vigo  " — the  Latin  vicus — having  been 
traditionally  handed  down  to  the  present  day  many 
centuries  after  the  last  traces  of  those  settlements  have 
disappeared. 

Many  fields,  too,  here  and  in  different  parts  of  the 
countr^^,  are  named  "  Wliitehall."  How  did  they 
get  that  name  ?  The  answer  is  sought  in  the  Roman 
word  "  aula,^'  the  residence  of  a  magistrate  or  a  chief 
man  in  authority.  When  the  Saxons  came,  they  found 
these  grand  aulas,  built  of  stone,  dotted  about  the 
country,  some  ruined,  others  tolerably  perfect ;  and 
they  must  have  made  a  strong  impression  upon  these 
barbaric  Pagans,  used  at  that  early  period  of  their 
history  only  to  wooden  dwellings  of  the  rudest 
construction.  They  would  ha^  e  demanded  the  names 
of  these  places  from  the  Romano-British,  who  would 
tell  them  they  were  aulas ;  and  they  would  have 
called  them  "  hwit  aulas,"  from  the  stone  of  which 
they  were  built.  It  was  thus  that  the  many  villages 
called  "  Whitchurch  "  got  their  name,  from  the  stone 
(or  "  white  ")  churches  that  were  so  remarkable  as 


HERMITS  151 

compared  with  the  dark-hiied  temples  and  churches  of 
wood  to  Avhich  the  Saxons  were  accustomed. 

But  if  this  origin  of  the  "  Whitehalls  "  does  not 
satisfy,  there  is  another  which  may  be  even  more 
Hkely.  They  were,  possibly,  at  one  time  the  sites  of 
village  Witan-halls,  where  the  wdse  men  of  the  Saxon 
villages  assembled  their  local  Parliaments,  the 
"  witans  "  or  "  witenagemots,"  those  remote  fore- 
runners of  the  village-  and  parish-councils  which 
statesmen  of  the  late  nineteenth  century  have 
established,  as  items  in  a  more  or  less  admirable 
scheme  for  restoring  the  Heptarchy.  There  are 
"  Whitehalls  "  in  the  immediate  outlying  fields  of 
Sittingbourne,  and  there  is  one  within  the  Roman 
encampment  overhanging  the  railway  cutting  at 
Harbledo^vn  ;  but  at  none  of  these  places  are  there  any 
traces  of  buildings  above  ground.  Excavation  might 
reveal  ancient  foundations. 


XXVIII 

As  mediaeval  travellers  approached  Sittingbourne 
from  the  direction  of  London,  the  first  objects  they 
perceived  were  the  chapel  and  hermitage  of  Schamel, 
dedicated  to  Saint  Thomas  a  Becket,  and  standing  on 
the  south  side  of  the  road.  They  are  gone  now, 
and  a  wayside  public-house — "  The  Volunteers  "— 
stands  on,  or  near  their  site  ;  but  the  hermitage  was, 
from  the  time  of  King  John  to  the  impious  days  of 
Henry  the  Eighth,  a  resting-place  for  those  devout 
pilgrims  who  sought  the  shrine  of  the  "  holy  blissful 
martyr  "  at  Canterbury.  In  the  reign,  however,  of 
that  "  Defender  of  the  Faith  " — when  it  suited  him — 
the  chapel  and  the  hermitage  were  scattered  to  the 
winds,  and  the  hermit  thrust  out  into  a  world  that 
had  grown  tired  of  making  pilgrimages.  But,  while 
it  lasted,  the  Hermitage  of  Schamel  did  a  very  thriving 


152  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

business  ;  so  thriving,  indeed,  as  to  excite  the  jealousy 
of  the  Sittingbourne  people,  who  conceived  themselves 
injured  by  the  intercepting  of  pilgrims  before  they 
could  reach  and  fertilize  the  town  with  streams  of  gold. 
Rich  pilgrims  were  a  source  of  wealth  to  many  towns 
and  villages  on  the  Dover  Road,  and  hermits,  bishops, 
priors,  and  abbots  contended  for  them  like  'busmen  for 
passengers  before  the  introduction  of  the  bell-punch 
and  the  ticket  system. 

We  first  hear  of  Schamel  Hermitage  in  the  time 
of  a  priest  named  Samuel,  whose  duties  consisted  in 
saying  mass  daily,  in  wearing  a  hair-shirt,  refraining 
from  soap  and  water,  and  in  attending  upon  those 
pilgrims  and  travellers  who  did  not  mind  the  apostolic 
dirt  in  which  he  wallowed  ;  and  by  whose  alms  he 
supported  himself  and  the  chapel.  Samuel  died  and 
was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  and  the  building  presently 
fell  into  decay,  to  be  rebuilt  by  an  Augustinian  monk, 
during  whose  lifetime  the  annals  of  the  Hermitage  are 
too  placid  for  recounting  in  this  place.  His  successor 
was  one  Walter  de  Hermestone,  who  was  appointed  by 
the  Queen  about  1271.  Imagine  his  disgust,  though, 
when  he  came  here  and  foimd  the  place  a  wreck,  the 
work  of  the  Vicar  and  the  townsfolk  of  Sittingbourne. 
This  estimable  clergyman,  whose  name  was  Simon  de 
Shordich,  and  who  seems  to  have  brought  the  manners 
and  customs  ( f  his  native  place  with  him,  had  carried 
off  the  Hermitage  bell  and  altar  as  prizes  to  his  own 
church,  and  the  men  of  Sittingbourne  had  left  both 
the  Hermitage  and  the  Chapel  in  the  likeness  of  a 
Babylonic  ruin.  History  does  not  record  what 
became  of  Walter  de  Hermestone,  but  it  seems  likely 
that  he  departed  for  some  more  peaceful  spot. 
Meanwhile,  Simon  de  Shordich  died,  perhaps  from 
the  effects  of  the  eremitical  curses  which  the  dis- 
appointed incumbent  of  the  ruinated  place  doubtless 
showered  on  him  ;  and  he  was  followed,  both  in  his 
Vicarage  and  his  evil  courses,  by  a  certain  Boniface, 
who  carted  awav  the  ruins  and  sold  them. 


SCHAMEL  153 

Sixteen  years  later  an  inquiry  was  held  on  these 
matters,  at  the  instance  of  the  Queen,  who,  holding 
the  manor  of  Milton-next-Sittingbourne,  was  patron 
of  the  chapel.  There  seems  to  have  been  a  hamlet  of 
Schamel  at  this  time,  for  a  certain  William  the  Weaver, 
and  others  who  gave  evidence  before  the  commission, 
are  located  here.  It  must  have  been  about  this  era 
that  the  chapel  was  rebuilt,  but  little  is  heard  of  it 
until  June,  1358,  when  the  Queen  of  Edward  the  Third 
passed  by,  and  gave  20,9.  in  alms.  Friar  Richard  de 
Lexeden  was  then  in  possession.  Two  years  later. 
King  John  of  France  passed,  on  his  way  home,  and 
gave  twenty  nobles,  a  sum  equal  to  no  less  than 
£120  of  our  money  ;  and  that  is  the  last  we  hear  of  the 
Hermitage  until  it  was  for  ever  destroyed  in  1542-43. 

Meanwhile,  the  chapel  of  Swanstree,  at  the  east 
end  of  the  town,  was  as  much  upheld  and  cared  for 
by  the  Sittingbourne  people  as  the  Schamel  chapel 
was  robbed  and  injured.  Wealthy  tradespeople  left 
money  in  their  wills  to  its  altars  and  for  the  repair 
of  the  roads  thither,  and  the  Vicars  of  Sittingbourne 
approved  of  it,  because  it  not  only  did  not  take  away 
from  them,  but  gleaned  anything  that  the  pilgrims 
had  to  spare  after  they  left  Sittingbourne,  and  before 
they  came  to  the  next  town.  But  although  so 
favoured,  this  chapel  has  gone  the  way  of  the  other, 
and  iiot  a  vestige  of  it  remains.  It  stood  on  the 
grounds  of  the  present  Murston  Rectory. 

Sittingbourne  was  not  a  large  place  in  the  days  that 
ended  with  the  advent  of  railway  times,  but  it  had  an 
astonishing  number  of  hotels,  inns,  and  beer-houses. 
People  had  not  at  that  time  begun  to  see  that  the 
royal  road  to  fortune  lay  in  the  making  of  bricks  and 
tiles,  and  so  they  amassed  riches  by  i)lundering  the 
travellers  whose  evil  stars  sent  them  down  the  road  to 
Canterbury  and  Dover  ;  and  in  the  lulls  of  business 
when  no  tra\'ellers  were  forthcoming,  they  ])robably 
"  kept  their  hands  in  "  by  overcharging  one  another. 
I  believe  Sittingbourne  must  have  been  a  town  of  inns, 


154  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

and  but  little  else,  and  that  the  population  lived  in 
hotels  and  drank  wines,  beer,  and  spirits  all  day  long 
and  a  great  part  of  the  night,  just  for  the  fun  of  the 
thing. 

Not  that  mine  host  of  the  "  Red  Lion  "  was  at  all 
extortionate  when  he  entertained  Henry  the  Fifth 
in  1415,  on  his  return  from  Agincourt.  On  the 
contrary,  the  bill  Avas  decidedly  reasonable,  amounting 
only  to  nine-and-sixpence,  including  wine.  You 
cannot,  unhappily,  dine  conquering  heroes  of  any 
sort — much  less  kings — so  reasonably  nowadays, 
and  I  suspect  that,  even  a  century  or  more  ago, 
when  the  First  and  Second  Georges  were  used  to 
put  up  at  the  "  George,"  on  their  way  to  or  from 
Hanover,  prices  must  have  ruled  much  higher.  The 
"  Red  Lion  "  was  undoubtedly  the  chief  inn  at 
Sittingbourne  from  a  very  early  time,  and  it  kept  its 
good  repute  for  centuries  ;  for  here  it  was  that  Henry 
the  Eighth  stayed  when  "  progressing "  along  the 
Dover  Road  in  1541,  and  here  he  held  what  in  those 
autocratic  times  answered  to  our  present  Cabinet 
Councils.  If  I  were  a  licensed  victualler  I  could  wish 
those  days  back  again.  Beside  the  "  Red  Lion  "  and 
the  "  George,"  there  were  at  this  time  the  scarcely 
less  inferior  hostelries  of  the  "  Horn,"  the  "  Saracen's 
Head,"  the  "  Bull,"  and  the  "  White  Hart  "  ;  and, 
what  with  Emperors,  Kings,  Archbishops,  Cardinals, 
and  other  dignitaries,  with  trains  of  attendants 
numbering  anything  from  two  thousand  down  to 
fifty,  they  must  all  have  been  needed.  In  the 
sixteenth  century,  then.  Emperors  and  Kings  were 
the  usual  guests  of  the  "  Red  Lion."  The  landlord 
at  that  time  sniffed  at  Princes  and  Archbishops,  and 
turned  away  such  riff-raff  as  Dukes  and  Earls.  So 
soon,  however,  as  1610,  we  find  a  mere  untitled 
traveller  received  at  the  "  Red  Lion  "  ;  one  Justus 
Zinzerling,  a  German,  who  came  posting  up  the  road 
from  Canterbury.  We  know  from  his  own  account 
that  posting  was  not  in  those  days  very  expensive. 


SITTINGBOURNE  1 55 

He  paid  three  shillings  for  riding  these  fifteen  miles, 
and  alighting  at  the  "  Red  Lion,"  put  up  for  the 
night,  glad  to  get  here,  past  the  body  of  a  robber 
Avho  had  been  hanged  from  a  roadside  tree  for 
murdering  a  messenger.  The  body  was  so  surrounded 
with  ehains  and  rings  that  Herr  Zinzerling  was  of 
the  opinion  it  would  last  a  long  time  for  the  due 
reading  of  a  much-needed  moral  to  others.  He  found 
the  landlord  of  the  "  Red  Lion  "  to  be  a  Scotchman 
who  knew  Latin,  and  on  this  common  ground  of  good- 
fellowship  they  drank  to  one  another  and  quoted  the 
classics  until  drmk  tied  their  tongues  and  deposited 
their  bodies  under  the  table. 

I  have  already  had  occasion  to  mention  six  first-class 
inns  that  flourished  here  three  hundred  years  ago  ; 
but  in  the  middle  of  last  century  there  were  a  great 
many  more.  The  "  George,"  the  "  Rose,"  and  the 
"  Red  Lion  "  seem  to  have  been  the  chief  est  of  them 
about  this  time ;  and,  if  we  may  believe  Hasted 
(and  there  is  no  reason  why  we  shouldn't),  the  "  Rose  " 
was  "  the  most  superb  of  any  throughout  the  kingdom, 
and  the  entertainment  afforded  in  it  equally  so.'' 
But  where  is  the  "  Rose  Hotel  "  now  ?  Gone,  alas  ! 
with  the  snows  of  yester-year.  Where,  also,  the 
"  George,"  which  at  the  time  of  Waterloo  kept  forty 
pairs  of  post-horses  ?  and  where  the  "  Red  Lion  "  ? 
It  would,  I  fancy,  puzzle  most  folks  to  say,  for  although 
they  still  stand,  the  change  that  came  over  the  spirit 
of  their  dream  about  1840  has  caused  them  to  be  cut 
up  into  separate  houses  and  tenements. 

We  can,  however,  by  intensive  observation,  identify 
the  "  Rose."  It  is  a  handsome  red  brick  building  on 
the  left-hand  side,  now  occupied  by  a  firm  of  grocers. 
The  identification  is  from  a  beautifully-carved  rose 
in  a  red  brick  panel  on  the  first  floor,  with  the  initials 
"  R.  I."  and  the  date  1708.  The  building  is  large, 
and  has  eight  windows  in  a  row.  But  the  "  George  " 
has  nine,  and  the  "  Lion  "  twelve. 

About  this  time,  too,  the  people  seem  to  have  given 


156  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

up  living  in  hotels  and  inns,  and  to  have  taken  to 
private  houses.  Also,  they  drank  tea  instead  of  beer  ; 
and  so  presently  we  find  the  inns  disappearing  that  at 
one  time  stood  next  to  one  another,  in  a  long  line  on 
both  sides  of  the  High  Street,  and  even  in  the  branch 
thoroughfares.  Here  was  the  "  White  Hart,"  large 
enough  in  1815  to  have  eighteen  soldiers  quartered  in  it 
daily.  It  is  now  divided  between  a  Bank  and  a 
Brewery.  Here,  also,  was  the  "  Gun,"  which,  aptly 
enough,  had  as  many  vicissitudes  as  the  fortunes  of 
war,  for  it  was  turned  into  the  Parish  Workhouse, 
opened  again  in  1752  as  the  "  Globe,"  and  presently 
became  the  workhouse  again,  with,  probably,  the 
landlord  as  its  first  inmate  !  But  it  was  no  greater  a 
success  as  what  our  grandfathers  with  an  ironical 
humour  termed  a  "  House  of  Industry  "  than  as  a 
hostelry,  and  so  it  was  not  long  before  the  paupers 
were  marched  out  and  another  phase  of  its  strange 
eventful  history  commenced.  This  time  it  became  a 
coachmaker's  workshop,  and  there  we  will  leave 
it. 

Sittingbourne  innkeepers  had  an  inordinate  fancy 
for  changing  their  signs,  and  some  of  their  houses 
have  borne  as  many  aliases  as  an  old  and  hardened 
swindler.  Thus  the  "  Seven  Stars  "  became  in  turn 
the  "  Cherry  Tree,"  the  "  Union  Flag,"  and  finally 
the  "  Volunteers  "  ;  while  the  present  "  Plough  Inn  " 
(only  they  may  have  changed  its  name  again  already) 
in  East  Street  has  been  successively  the  "  King- 
Henry  the  Eighth,"  and  the  "  Royal  Oak."  Other 
houses  were  the  "  Bull,"  the  "  Adam  and  Eve,"  the 
"  Walnut  Tree,"  the  "  King's  Head,"  "  Six  Bells," 
"  Black  Boy,"  "  Boatswain's  Call,"  "  Ship," 
"  Chequer,"  "  Three  Post  Boys,"  "  Crown,"  "  Bird  in 
Hand,"  ''  Lamb,"  "  Three  Kings,"  "  Angel,"  "  Porto- 
bello,"  "  Bell,"  "  Duke's  Head,"  and  "  Cross  Keys  "  ; 
to  name  but  a  selection,  but  age  has  withered,  and 
want  of  custom  staled,  the  most  of  them,  and,  instead 
of  entertaining  travellers,   the  inhabitants  of  Sitting- 


BRICKS   AND   TILES  157 

bourne  poison  them  with  the  appalHng  smells  that 
arise  from  the  numberless  brick-kilns  round  about. 

For  the  making  of  bricks  and  tiles  is  the  chief 
industry  of  Sittingbourne  nowadays,  and  a  very  large 
and  flourishing  industry  it  is  ;  so  much  so,  indeed, 
that  there  will  be  presently  nothing  of  Sittingbourne 
left  at  all  ;  because,  like  maggots  that  live  in  cheeses 
— and  on  them — the  Sittingbourne  brickmakers  find 
their  sustenance  in  the  ground  on  w^hich  they  live,  and 
have  carted  away  nearly  all  the  surrounding  country. 
When  they  have  worked  down  to  the  chalk  and  the 
bed-rock,  I  don't  know  what  they  will  do.  Already 
all  the  hills  have  vanished  and  have  been  distributed 
over  England  in  the  shape  of  bricks,  and  when  folks 
return  who  ha^'e  known  Sittingbourne  in  their  youth, 
they  don't  recognize  the  place,  and  go  away  wondering 
whether  curses  will  fall  upon  it  because  its  people  have 
thus  removed  the  old  landmarks. 

Changed,  indeed,  it  is,  not  only  from  those  days 
when  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  sojourned  here, 
but  also  from  those  comparativ^ely  recent  times  when 
the  traveller's  only  choice  was  the  road.  Then  three 
parts  of  the  population  were  engaged  in  hotel-keeping, 
licensed-victualling,  or  coach-building ;  innkeepers, 
job-masters,  hostlers,  post-boys,  chamber-maids,  and 
boots,  were  their  styles  and  titles,  and  if  you  are 
curious  enough  to  turn  the  pages  of  Sittingbourne 
registers  you  will  find  such  entries  as  these  to  be  the 
chiefest  of  their  contents  :  "  John  Slater,  innholder, 
of  the  White  Hart,  was  buryed,  22nd  Feby,  170§  "  ; 
or  "  Joseph,  ostler  at  the  Crowne,  buryed  Oct.  23, 1708." 

When  the  railway  came,  ruin,  smft  and  terrible, 
fell  upon  this  busy  community.  Grass  grew  in  the 
stable-yards  ;  the  old  high-hung  yellow  chariots  and 
the  light  post-chaises  rotted  to  pieces  that  were  used 
to  be  hired  by  travellers  who  did  not  care  so  much 
about  the  price  as  the  pace  they  went  ;  the  price 
of  horses  fell  ;  the  vast  interiors  of  the  hotels  with 
their  numberless  bedrooms,  and  one-time  cosy  coffee- 


158  THE   DOVER  HO  AD 

rooms,  echoed  to  the  casual  tread  of  some  unfrequent 
guest,  uncomfortable  and  half-frightened  at  the 
solitary  state  in  which  he  sat  ;  hostlers,  grooms,  and 
washers  lounged  miserably  about  the  mouldy  harness- 
rooms  in  company  with  dejected  post-boys  ;  chamber- 
maids departed  to  other  scenes  and  occupations  ; 
and  "  boots  "  gradually  lost  the  encyclopaedic  know- 
ledge for  which  he  was  renowned,  and  forgot  alike 
the  number  of  miles  to  the  next  post-town  and  the 
proper  way  to  clean  a  pair  of  Bluchers. 

The  last  post-boy  is  dead  now,  and  the  chaises 
and  the  chariots  are  represented — like  so  many  other 
obsolete  things — at  the  South  Kensington  Museum  ; 
and  the  typical  innkeeper  of  that  day  should  be 
also,  for  his  like  is  no  more  seen  on  earth.  He  was 
a  burly  man  with  a  red,  good-humoured,  clean-shaven 
face.  He  wore,  frequently,  knee-breeches  and  sleeved 
yellow  waistcoats  with  black  stripes  that  made  him 
look,  to  the  youthful  imagination,  like  a  great  wasp  or 
bumble-bee.  He  wore  short  white  aprons,  too,  and 
high  collars  encircling  his  thick  red  neck,  so  that  one 
gazed  upon  him  in  constant  dread  of  his  falling  down 
in  an  apoplectic  fit ;  he  wore — but  enough  !  Let  it  be 
said,  though,  that  he  resembled  a  Blue-coat  boy  in 
one  respect,  for  he  was  never  known  to  wear  a  hat. 

All  this  is  changed.  Sittingbourne  had  grown 
into  importance  because  its  situation  was  convenient 
for  travellers  to  stay  here  to  change  horses  at,  and 
when  the  roads  became  deserted  the  place  would 
have  fallen  back  into  its  original  obscurity  had  it 
not  been  for  bricks,  hops,  and  cherries.  Bricks,  and 
the  surrounding  fruit  country  have  prospered  it 
anew,  and  have  made  it  what  it  is  ;  a  dusty,  thickly 
populated,  dirty  town  whose  old  aspect  has  been 
altered  from  a  broad  and  roomy  street  to  crowded 
lanes  and  a  High  Street  filled  with  frowzy  alleys, 
and  many  Dissenting  conventicles  of  different  degrees 
of  ugliness. 

Of  late  years,  paper  has  been  added  to  the  interests  of 


PAPER  159 

Sittingbourne.  Outside  the  town,  on  Milton  Creek, 
leading  muddily  to  the  Swale,  there  you  will  find  paper 
in  its  crude  wood-pulp  stage,  as  imported  from  the 
mills  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  Closely  viewed,  it  is  not 
attractive.  Slabs  of  wood-pulp,  stacked  forty  or  fifty 
feet  high,  with  a  narrow-gauge  railway  running  between 
cliff-like  accumulations  of  this  merchandise,  present  a 
scene  made  squaHd  by  the  torn  and  bedraggled 
fragments  of  paper  packing  that  the  winds  sport  with. 
But,  seen  from  the  Swale,  or  indeed  from  a  distance 
on  land,  these  towering  stocks  of  the  raw  material  for 
newspapers  have  a  peculiarly  romantic  appearance  ; 
looking  indeed  like  a  reminiscence  of  the  temples  of 
the  East, 

The  village  of  Milton  itself,  properly  "  Milton 
Regis,"  is  full  of  queer  old  corners.  The  church  stands 
aloof,  dignified,  on  a  remote  country  road.  In  its 
churchyard  is  a  stone  mentioning  a  w^oman  w^ho  had 
six  husbands  : — 

"  Here  lyeth  interred  the  Body  of  Abraham 
Washiton  (sic),  late  husband  of  Alise  Washinton  now 
liveing  in  Milton,  wiiome  had  in  all  six  Husbands  : 
John  Ailes,  John  Ricard,  Thomas  Gill,  John  Jeefrre, 
Alexander  Flet.     Anno  1601." 

It  wdll  be  observed  that  this  lady  who  collected 
husbands  is  described  as  "  now  liveing."  Possibly  the 
sixth  was  not  the  last ;  but  by  that  time  the  men  of 
Milton  must  have  grown  rather  timid. 

In  any  case,  the  history  of  Mrs.  Washinton  was 
evidently  considered  remarkable,  to  be  detailed  on  this 
stone,  either  by  herself  or  by  the  admiring  or  astonished 
neighbourhood. 

Sittingbourne  parish  church,  and  some  remaining 
walls  of  the  more  ancient  inns,  are  all  that  need 
detain  the  stranger.  The  massive  square  tower  of 
the  church,  which  is  a  prominent  feature  of  the  High 
Street,  is  the  oldest  part  ;  the  body  of  the  building 
dates  only  from  the  Perpendicular  period.  To  this 
time  belongs  a  singular  monumental  effigy  of  a  lady, 


160 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


placed  in  a  niche  of  the  north  chancel  wall  ;  a  mys- 
terious figure,  represented  with  an  infant  wrapped  in 
swaddling  clothes  lying  across  its  wasted  breast. 
No  inscription  remains  to  tell  its  story.  The  church 
fronts  on  to  the  highway,  and  in  days  of  pilgrimage 


YAED    OF    THE    "  LIOX  "    IXX.  SITTINGBOURNK. 


(and  even  so  lately  as  1830)  the  bourne  to  which 
Sittingbourne  owes  its  name,  which  comes  from  the 
Anglo-Saxon  "  Saethingbourne,"  the  seething,  or 
bubbling,  brook,  trickled  and  welled  up  in  the  likeness 


MURSTON  161 

of  a  sprinor  across  the  road.  Through  it  splashed  the 
mounted  pilgrims,  while  the  weary-footed  palmers 
crossed  by  stepping-stones,  or  cooled  their  feet  in  the 
water.  Many  halted  to  cross  themselves,  to  kneel  and 
pray  before  the  figure  of  Our  Lady  which  filled  the 
niche  still  remaining  in  the  buttress  of  the  Chilton 
Chapel,  and  was  called  thence  "  Saint  Mary  of  the 
Butterasse."  This  little  shrine  was  defaced  in  1540, 
and  now  the  running  stream  is  enclosed  in  pipes  that 
discharge  the  water  into  Milton  Creek. 

The  village  of  3Iurston,  which  at  one  time  skirted 
the  road  at  some  distance  from  Sittingbourne,  and 
was  in  receipt  of  the  town's  leavings,  is  now  quite 
undistinguishable  by  a  stranger  from  the  town  itself, 
so  greatly  has  the  population  grown  of  late  years. 
It  is  quite  uninteresting,  save  for  the  memory  of  the 
affray  by  which  the  rector,  the  Reverend  Richard 
Tray,  was  ejected  from  his  living  in  1641.  A  stone 
let  into  the  Rectory  wall  preserves  the  record  of  the 
affair  : — 

Si  Natvra  negat  facit  Indignntio  Versvm. 

The  Barue  which  stood  where  this  now 
Stands  was  bvrnt  down  by  the  Rebel's  hands 

in  December  1659 
This  Barne  which  stands  where  tother  stood 
By  Eichard  Tray  is  now  made  good, 
in  July  1662 
All  things  yov  bvrn, 
Or  overtvrn, 
Bvt  bvild  vp  novsht :   pray  tell 
Is  this  the  Fire  of  Zeale  or  Hell  ? 
Yet  yov  doe  all 
By  the  Spirits  call 
As  yov  pretend  :   bvt  pray 
What  Spirit  is't  ?     A  bad  one  I  dare  saj-. 


XXIX 

Five  miles  and  a  half  down  the  road  from  Sittingbourne, 
the  pilgrims  who  had  prayed  so  de^'outly  at  the  shrine 
of  Our  Lady  of  the  Buttress  (and  it  is  to  be  hoped  had 
not  forgotten  the  claims  of  Swanstree  Hermitage) 
came  to  Ospringc,  where  they  usually  found  a  profuse 


162  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

hospitality  waiting  for  them  at  the  Maison  Dieu.  Not 
that  there  was  any  lack  of  religious  houses  on  the  way. 
Far  from  it,  indeed.  They  had  not  proceeded  much 
farther  than  a  mile  when  they  came  in  those  times  to 
the  Hermitage  of  Bapchild,  with  the  hermit  standing 
on  the  doorstep,  scratching  himself  with  one  hand, 
holding  out  a  scolloj^  shell  for  alms  in  the  other,  and 
conjuring  them  by  the  blessed  Thomas  and  all  the 
hierarchy  of  saints  to  spare  something  for  his  altar. 
The  parish  church  of  Bapchild,  which  was  built  in  early 
Norman  times,  before  any  one  dreamed  of  Canterbury 
becoming  a  place  of  pilgrimage,  or  the  high-road 
crowded  with  a  varied  concourse  of  miserable  sinners 
anxious  to  compound  for  their  ill-deeds  by  visiting  the 
scene  of  the  martyrdom,  is  situated  beside  a  lane  at 
some  distance  from  the  road,  and  so  was  quite  out  of  the 
track  of  that  alms-giving  crowd.  It  grieved  the 
Vicar  of  Bapchild  to  see  these  free-handed  folks  going 
by,  with  never  a  mark  or  even  a  silver  penny  coming 
his  way,  and  so  he  contrived  to  set  up  some  sort  of  a  cell 
and  chapel  with  a  few  exceedingly  dubious  bones  in  it, 
supposed  to  be  the  reliques  of  saints  ;  but  probably 
grubbed  up  from  his  own  churchyard.  It  did  not 
matter  much  whose  reliques  they  were  called,  for  that 
was  a  credulous  age,  and  so  long  as  there  were  not  two 
skulls  of  Saint  Paulinus  on  view,  or  more  than  a  gross  of 
Saint  Alphege's  teeth  to  be  seen  at  the  numberless 
shrines  between  London  and  Canterbury,  the  pilgrims 
were  not  generally  disposed  to  be  critical.  It  was  only 
when  Saint  Frideswyde  appeared,  from  the  osseous 
evidence  of  these  shrines,  to  have  as  many  arms  as 
Vishnu,  or  when  Saint  Antholin  appeared,  from  equally 
untrustworthy  evidence,  to  have  been  in  this  life  a 
Double-headed  Nightingale  or  a  kind  of  Siamese  Twins, 
that  men  on  pilgrimage  became  sceptical.  But,  after 
all,  if  saints  could  perform  one  kind  of  a  miracle,  why 
not  another,  and  why  should  not  Saint  Alphege  cause 
his  teeth  to  be  increased,  until  a  j^eck  of  them  could 
be  gathered  from  the  monasteries  of  Europe,  or  Saint 


TONG  163 

Aiitholiii  not  have  his  skulls  miraculously  multiplied 
if  they  had  a  mind  to  it  ;  and  if  Saint  Frideswyde 
could  be  proved  to  have  been  possessed  of  half  a  dozen 
arms,  was  it  not  for  the  good,  if  not  of  the  church,  at 
least  of  the  clergy,  that  it  should  be  so  ?  And  so,  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  Vicar  and  the  Hermit,  between 
them,  did  well  ;  and  also  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
Hermit  took  more  advantage,  for  washing  purposes,  of 
the  little  stream  which  here  also  flowed  across  the 
roadway  than  his  brethren  were  wont  to  do. 

The  road  between  Ospringe  and  Sittingbourne  was 
in  those  days  very  lonely,  and  lonely  it  still  remains, 
for  the  settlements  of  Bapchild,  Radfield,  and  Green- 
street  are  but  dull  and  dishevelled  collections  of  tiny 
shops  and  cottages,  with  here  and  there  a  slumberous 
old  inn  or  whitewashed  farmhouse.  The  railway  to 
Dover  runs  on  the  left  hand,  within  sight  of  the 
highway,  through  the  beautiful  cherry-orchards  and 
the  hop-gardens,  and  the  land  slopes  gently  down  to  the 
levels  of  Teynham  and  the  fertile  though  ague-stricken 
marshes  of  the  Swale  ;  that  part  of  Kent  where, 
according  to  the  old  local  saying,  there  is  "  wealth 
Avithout  health  "  ;  significantly  alluded  to  in  the 
rhyme — 

He  that  would  not  live  long, 

Let  him  live  at  Murston,  Teynham,  or  Tong. 

Tong  Castle,  where  Rowena  "  drank  hael  "  to  King 
Vortigern  and  captivated  that  very  susceptible  but 
unpatriotic  monarch  ;  the  scene  also  of  the  treacherous 
murder  by  Hengist  and  his  men  of  three  hundred 
British  nobles,  is  represented  now  only  by  a  grassy 
mound.  Here  we  are  in  the  centre  of  the  hop-growing 
districts,  and  the  road  begins  to  be  bordered  with 
hop-gardens,  bare  in  autumn  and  Avinter,  except  for 
the  great  stacks  of  poles  ;  but  beautiful  in  spring 
and  summer  with  the  climbing  bine,  planted  in  long 
alleys  in  which  women  and  children  work  in  the  long 
summer  days,  weeding  and  tying  up  the  hops,  and 
hanging  up  the  wind-screens  called  ''  lews."     For  the 


164  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

hop- vine  is  a  delicate  plant  that  requires  as  much 
cossetting  and  constant  attention  as  an  invalid,  and 
if  it  is  not  carefully  tended  and  trained  up  in  the  way  it 
should  go,  it  presently  droops  and  dies  or  becomes  too 
weak  to  climb  up  the  long  twelve-  and  fifteen-feet  poles 
which  it  is  expected  to  surmount.  And  so  it  is  jealously 
shielded  from  all  draughts  and  boisterous  breezes  by 
long  pieces  of  canvas  or  string  netting,  stretched  from 
})ole  to  pole  at  that  side  of  the  gardens  whence  come  the 
prevailing  winds  ;  while  every  hop-pole  is  tied  so 
scrupulously  and  elaborately  to  its  fellow  that  a  June 
hop-garden  is  a  very  maze  of  string. 

To  these  gardens  come  in  August  and  September 
hundreds  of  men,  women,  and  children  from  London 
slums  ;  some  by  train,  many  more  by  road.  Whole 
families  of  them,  with  their  clothing,  their  pots  and 
l^ans  and  sooty  kettles,  slung  over  their  shoulders, 
come  tramping  down  the  weary  miles,  and  fill  the  air 
with  ribaldry,  strange  oaths,  and  horrible  blasphemy. 
The  villagers  keep  them  at  arm's  length,  if  not,  indeed, 
at  a  greater  distance  than  that,  and  keep  their  children 
at  home  ;  going  round  their  gardens  and  orchards  at 
night,  to  see  that  gates  are  locked  ;  and,  bolting  doors 
and  latching  windows  securel}^,  go  to  bed  and  dream 
dreams  in  which  evil-looking  hoppers  are  stealing  their 
fruit  and  making  away  with  the  occupants  of  their 
hen-roosts.  Sometimes  they  wake  up  and  find  the 
crashing  of  branches,  the  screaming  and  clucking  of 
cocks  and  hens,  which  have  formed  the  subjects  of  their 
dreams,  to  have  foundation  in  fact,  and  hurriedly 
dashing  out  of  bed,  arrive,  barefooted  and  armed  only 
with  a  poker,  in  their  gardens  just  in  time  to  see 
mysterious  figures  vanish  over  the  wall  and  to  hear  the 
protests  of  their  stolen  fowls  grow  small  by  degrees  and 
beautifully  less  in  the  distance.  Next  day  the  bereaved 
villager  is  heard  to  execute  fruitless  variations  of 
"  Tell  me,  shepherv^'s,  have  you  seen  my  Flora  pass 
this  way  ?  "  and  some  enterprising  emigrants  from 
Whitechapel  feast  royally  on  poultry. 


OSPRINGE  165 

Just  where  the  hilltoj)  rises  and  looks  down  hi  the 
direction  of  Ospringe,  the  wisdom  of  the  Faversham 
authorities  has  planted  a  Hospital  for  infectious 
diseases.  It  fronts  the  road,  and  has  a  very  large 
door  with  ''  Isolation  Hospital  "  painted  on  it  in  very 
small  letters.  Tramps  and  beggars  passing  by  see 
a  large  house  where  possibly  something  may  be  begged 
or  stolen.  They  go  up  to  the  door,  and,  after  reading 
the  legend  painted  there,  may  be  seen  to  proceed 
hurriedly  on  their  way.  Without  standing  on  the  order 
of  their  going,  they  go  at  once.  Omne  ignohim  jyrn 
magnifico  :  they  don't  know  what  "  isolation  "  means, 
but  they  hurry  off,  lest  they  should  catch  isolation  and 
die  of  it.  And  so  they  come,  stricken  with  a  mortal 
fear,  into  Ospringe,  down  a  dusty  hill.  A  Maison  Dieu 
that  stood  here  in  olden  times  would  perhajDS  have 
received  them  then.,  but  to-day  the  few  fragments  of  it 
that  remain  are  part  of  the  "  Red  Lion  "  inn,  and 
tramps  find  no  encouragement  there. 

The  Knights  Templar  and  the  Brethren  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  held  this  Hospital  for  travellers  for  many 
years,  from  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second,  and  they 
exercised  a  lavish  hospitality,  extended  to  all,  from 
the  King  downwards.  King  John  had  a  room  here — 
a  camera  7'egis—a.nd  other  monarchs  frequently  made 
this  a  haltuig-place  on  their  way  to  or  from  Dover. 
Very  few  records  are  left  of  the  f eastings  and  jolli- 
fications that  took  place  in  this  semi-religious,  semi- 
secular  retreat,  and  Ospringe  has  no  longer  any  Royal 
visitors.  The  village  consists  of  a  long  street  beside 
the  highway  at  the  foot  of  Judd's  Hill,  and  of  a  shorter 
street,  called  Water  Lane,  that  runs  off  at  right  angles 
where  the  remains  of  the  Maison  Dieu  stand  beside  the 
stream  to  which  Ospringe  owes  its  rather  pretty  name. 
At  one  time  this  stream  flowed  openly  across  the  road- 
way, but  it  is  bridged  now,  and  Water  Lane,  which 
had  a  raised  footpath  on  either  side,  while  the  lane 
itself  was  occupied  by  the  stream,  through  which 
horses  and  carts  splashed,  has  now  been  drained  dry. 


166  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

The  "  Anchor  Hotel  "  was  once  a  posting-house 
and  a  stopping-place  on  the  route  of  local  coaches 
between  Chatham  and  Heme  Bay,  but  this  traffic  has 
of  course  been  long  discontinued.  The  modern 
pilgrim  should  not  fail,  before  leaving  Ospringe,  to 
explore  Water  Lane  and  the  country  road  for  half  a  mile 
beyond.  The  place  abounds  in  old  cottages, 
picturesque  windmills,  and  old  timbered  houses  of 
some  pretensions.  Of  these.  Queen  Hall  is  probably 
the  most  interesting.  Beyond  it  is  the  parish  church, 
a  very  large  building  with  a  tower  of  grand  design  and 
unusual  type.  The  edifice  has  been  thoroughly  and 
unusually  well  restored,  with  an  exquisite  taste 
unfortunately  too  rare  in  country  districts,  and  may  be 
instanced  as  an  example  of  what  "  restoration  "  should 
be.  The  approach  to  the  church  by  the  road  is  past 
hop-gardens  which  group  beautifully,  and  form  an 
excellent  motive  for  a  sketch. 


XXX 

Eaversham  town,  lying  a  mile  distant,  between 
Eaversham  Creek  and  the  turnpike  road,  will  doubtless 
in  the  course  of  a  few  years  adjoin  Ospringe,  and 
convert  the  village  into  a  mere  suburb.  Preston,  the 
old  suburb  of  Eaversham,  is  distant  something  over 
a  mile,  but  in  between  there  have  lately  been  built 
very  many  new  streets  of  cottages  and  villas,  evidences 
of  Faversham's  prosperity,  doubtless,  but  not  pleasing 
to  the  tourist.  That  prosperit}^  is  due  to  its  situation 
upon  a  navigable  creek,  along  which  are  pursued  the 
trades  of  brick  and  tile  making,  and  the  manufacture  of 
gunpowder ;  and  the  oyster  fishery,  which  adds 
such  a  great  proportion  of  wealth  to  this  flourishing 
county  of  Kent,  is  largely  centred  here. 

The  surrounding  country,  too,  is  probably  the  very 
richest  and  most  suitable  district  for  the  growing  of 


40 


t:::v| 


!'\U 

I^!i"i- 

r.; 

;!: 

168  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

cherries,  orooseberries,  currants,  and  strawberries  ;  and 
the  frequency  and  perfection  of  the  market-gardens, 
orchards,  and  hojD-gardens  strike  the  pedestrian  with 
admiration  and  amazement.  A  visit  in  early  spring, 
when  the  orchards  are  in  blossom,  and  others  in  the 
cherry-  and  hop-picking  seasons,  convince  the 
sceptical  that  Kent  is,  in  sober  truth,  the  "  garden  of 
England."  The  stranger  needs  but  to  spend  a  week 
between  this  and  Canterbury  ;  to  tramp  the  high-road 
and  the  bye-lanes  in  the  direction  of  Heme  Hill  and 
Whitstable,  and  he  will  see  abundant  evidences  of  how 
important  is  the  fruit-growing  industry,  not  only  in  the 
fields  and  gardens,  where  he  may  see  the  fruit  growing, 
but  also  in  the  great  barns  and  outhouses  bursting  with 
many,  thousands  of  bushel-baskets  only  awaiting  the 
ripening  of  the  cherries  and  currants  to  be  filled  and 
put  upon  the  rails  at  Faversham  Junction,  whence 
numerous  special  trains  are  daily  run  during  the  season 
to  London  and  the  Borough  Market.  Somewhat 
earlier  in  the  year-^generally  in  mid-June — other 
evidences  of  the  magnitude  of  the  fruit  interest  are 
seen  in  the  auctioneers'  sale  bills  posted  on  every 
available  board  and  fence,  announcing  that  the 
growing  crops  are  presently  to  be  sold  by  auction. 

But,  in  spite  of  the  fertility  of  Kentish  orchards, 
the  countryman  will  not  forego  his  privilege  of 
grumbling.  Singularly  enough,  he  never  thinks  of 
eating  any  of  the  fruit  he  grows,  and  the  more  plentiful 
the  crops,  the  less  pleased  he  professes  himself  to  be. 
Not  that,  should  you  come  upon  him  at  a  season  when 
plenty  is  less  marked,  he  will  be  any  the  more  gratified. 
Hold  the  peasant  proprietor  of  an  orchard  in  conversa- 
tion during  the  fruit  season,  and  you  will  think  him 
one  of  the  most  miserable  and  unfortunate  men  in  the 
country. 

"  Good  day  to  you,"  you  say. 

(Hodge  nods  his  head,  and  mumbles,  "  Mor'n'n.") 

"  Splendid  croi3s  you  have  down  here.  I  should 
think  things  must  be  going  pretty  well  in  these  parts  ?  " 


DISCONTENTED   FARMERS  169 

"  Ay,  goin'  to  the  Devil  fast  enow,  I'se  warrand." 

"  Oh  !   how  d'you  make  that  out  ?  " 

"  Make  it  out,  is  it  ?  Why,  look  a-here  at  them 
there  turmuts  ;  d'you  iver  see  sich  poor  things  ;  a}^ 
an'  all  the  root  crops  is  bad's  can  be." 

"  Yes  ;  but  you^re  all  right  with  your  fruit  ;  cherries 
and  apples," 

"  M'yes,  there's  a  dale  o'  fruit  this  year  :  darned 
sight  too  much  ter  please  me." 

"  But  you  can't  ^'ery  well  have  too  much  of  a  good 
thing,  can  you  ?  " 

"  Can't  you  just,  though  ;  look  at  the  price  ;  down 
ter  nothing,  as  you  might  say.     Get  it  for  the  asking." 

"  But  /  didn't  get  cherries  for  the  asking  ;  /  had 
to  pay  eightpence  a  2:)ound  for  some  I  bought  at 
Chatham." 

"  Oh  !  I  dessay.  Wish  /  c'd  git  a  penny  a  pound. 
But  that's  jist  like  them  'ere  starv'em,  rob'em,  and 
cheat'em  folks.  Wouldn't  give  'ee  so  much's  the 
parings  o'  their  finger-nails  if  they  c'd  help  it." 

"  Then  why  don't  you  make  preserves  of  some  of 
your  fruit  ?  " 

"  Preserves  ?   what's  that,  mister  ?  " 

"  Why,  jam,  you  know.  Besides,  surely  you  eat 
some  of  your  own  fruit,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Fruit's  to  sell,  not  to  heat  !  " 

"  Well,  then,  if  you  can't  sell  it,  don't  preserve  it, 
and  won't  eat  any  of  it,  zvhat  do  you  do  with  it  ?  " 

"  Give  it  ter  the  pigs,  in  coorse  !  " 

"  Yes,  but  why  not  eat  some  of  it  yourself  ?  " 

"  Heat  it  !  D'yer  take  me  for  a  bloomin'  Nebuchad- 
nezzar ?     Besides,  it's  that  there  ondergestuble !  " 

"  But  Nebuchadnezzar  didn't  eat  fruit.  He  hadn't 
got  the  chance,  poor  fellow.  He  could  only  find  grass 
to  eat." 

"  Grass  'ood'n't  be  so  ondergestuble  as  fruit,  I  reckon. 
Blame  me  if  you  town  folks  don't  think  a  man  can 
live  on  nothink.  Now,  a  pound  or  two  o'  steak,  a 
few  rashers  o'  fat  bacon,  an'  a  few  heggs  for  bre'kfuss 


170  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

— that's  more  my  line.  Hexpeck  a  Christian  man  to 
heat  fruit !  " 

"  But  you  expect  people  to  buy  yours,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Naw,  I  don't  hexpeck  nothin'." 

"  Then  why  do  you  grow  it  ?  " 

"  Bekause  I  suppose  I'm  a  fool  ;  that's  about  the 
size  of  it.     Good  day  t'ye,  mister." 


XXXI 

The  history  of  Faversham  town  is  extremely  long  and 
interesting,  but  as  it  does  not  lie  on  the  direct  road  to 
Dover,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  go  into  a  very  detailed 
account  of  it.  It  is  a  curious,  half-maritime  borough 
whose  Mayor  wears  a  chain  of  office  decorated  with 
badges  of  oars  and  rudders  ;  a  town  whose  records 
include  such  events  as  the  burial  of  King  Stephen,  his 
Queen,  and  his  son  Eustace  ;  and  at  a  very  much  later 
date,  the  attempted  escape  of  James  the  Second. 
Faversham  fishermen  recognized  the  fugitive  King  as 
he  crouched,  shivering  in  the  hoy  at  Shellness  on  that 
bitter  December  morning  of  1688,  and,  robbing  him 
of  his  watch  and  chain  and  his  money,  they  brought 
him  a  prisoner  to  the  Mayor's  house,  where  he  was 
detained  two  days,  guarded  by  a  mob  of  countrymen, 
on  whom  his  terror-stricken  appeals  to  be  allowed  to 
escape  had  no  effect. 

"  He  who  is  not  with  me  is  against  me,"  exclaimed 
the  frantic  bigot.  "  My  blood  will  be  upon  your  heads 
if  I  fall  a  martyr."  But  the  dignity  of  a  martyr  was 
not  to  be  his.  A  troop  of  Life-guards  was  sent  to 
effect  his  release  from  the  ignorant  mob,  who  only 
refrained  from  stealing  his  diamond  shoe-buckles 
because  they  thought  them  to  be  pieces  of  glass. 
James's  terror  of  the  Faversham  fishers  is  reflected  in 
his  manifesto  issued  years  afterwards,  in  which  he  offers 
an   amnesty  to   his   "  rebel   subjects,"   but   expressly 


FAVERSHAM  171 

excepts  such  arch-traitors  as  Churchill,  Danby,  and  the 
poor  oyster-dredgers  of  Faversham. 

Saints  Crispin  and  Crispianus,  who  have  a  public- 
house  dedicated  to  them  at  Strood,  had  an  altar  here 
in  the  Abbey  Church,  and  were  supposed  to  have  lived 
a  while  at  Preston,  earning  their  living  as  cobblers 
in  a  cottage  that  stood  where  the  "  Swan  "  inn  is  now. 
Long  after  the  Reformation  had  done  sway  with  the 
shrine  of  Saint  Thomas,  pious  bootmakers  made 
pilgrimages  to  the  place  ;  and  St.  Crispin's  Day  was 
for  centuries  the  principal  holiday  in  Faversham. 
I  would  rather  make  pilgrimage  to  the  place  where 
they  earned  their  living  than  to  the  shrines  of  all  the 
sanctified  humbugs  who  contended  for  pride  of  place 
in  this  world,  and  becoming  worsted  in  the  struggle 
for  supremacy,  received  their  Canonization  as  a  matter 
of  course. 

Faversham  in  the  fifteenth  century  was  not  less 
well-furnished  with  religious  cranks  than  the  holy  road 
to  Canterbury.  There  was  an  anchorite  in  one  corner 
of  Faversham  churchyard,  and  an  anchoress  in  another, 
and  in  their  cells  they  sat  and  sulked  their  lives  away, 
and  never  did  any  work.  William  Thornbury  was 
rector  here  for  twenty-two  years,  when  he  resigned  his 
living  especially  to  become  an  inclusus  ;  and  for  eight 
years  he  occupied  a  damp  and  most  uncomfortable 
cell  amid  the  tombs,  until  he  died,  most  likely  of 
rheumatic  fever,  in  1481.  There  is  a  most  beautiful 
brass  to  him  in  the  church,  with  a  long  Latin  verse, 
recounting  how  he  was  one  of  the  elect,  and  how  for 
long  years  he  sat  lonely  in  his  cell.  Why  he  should  have 
lived  such  a  life  is  a  question  which  we,  who  are  so 
far  removed  from  that  age,  both  by  lapse  of  time  and 
in  change  of  thought,  cannot  readily  answer.  That  he 
was  a  man  of  good  birth,  good  position,  and  consider- 
able wealth,  would  appear  from  his  will,  and  these 
circumstances  make  his  reclusion  only  the  more 
extraordinary.  He  probably  suffered  either  from 
religious  mania,  or  else  from  a  guilty  conscience  which 


172  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

led  him  thus  to  compound  with  Heaven  for  some 
undiscovered  crime  that  made  his  Ufe  a  misery. 

But  the  traveller  who  keeps  strictly  to  his  Dover 
Road  only  passes  through  Faversham  suburbs.  Preston 
is  the  oldest  of  them,  and  lies  directly  on  the  road. 
To  the  left  rises  Faversham's  fantastic  spire,  con- 
spicuous above  the  flats  ;  immediately  in  front  goes  the 
railway  in  a  cutting  underneath  the  road  ;  and  straight 
ahead,  in  the  far  distance,  rises  up  a  long  thin  white 
line  amid  hillsides  clothed  heavily  with  forests.  It  is 
long  before  the  stranger  discovers  what  is  that  singular 
white  streak  upon  the  dark  trees,  but  it  reveals  itself, 
as  he  goes,  as  the  famous  Boughton  Hill,  and  the  wood- 
lands as  the  extensive  remains  of  Blean  Forest. 

It  was  at  "  Boughton-under-the-Blee  "  that  Chaucer's 
Canon  and  Yeoman  overtook  the  pilgrims.  The  Canon's 
hat  hung  down  his  back  by  a  lace,  for  he  had  ridden 
as  though  he  were  mad.  Under  his  hood  he  had 
placed  a  burdock-leaf  to  cool  his  head,  but  yet  his 
forehead  dropped  like  a  still  that  was  full  of  plantain 
and  wallflower.  The  Canon's  Yeoman  tells  the  pilgrims 
how  pleased  his  master  would  be  of  their  company  as 
far  as  Canterbury  ;  and  the  Host  makes  him  welcome, 
asking  if  his  master  can  please  the  party  with  a  merry 
story.  "  A  story  ?  "  asks  the  Yeoman  ;  "  that  is 
nothing  to  what  the  Canon  can  do.  He  is  an  Alchemist, 
and  so  clever  that — 

"  all  this  ground  on  which  we  be  riding, 
Till  that  we  come  to  Canterbury  town, 
He  could  all  cleane  turnen  up  so  down. 
And  pave  it  all  of  silver  and  of  gold.** 

"  Ah  !  "  says  Harry  Bailly,  the  Host,  "  that's  all  very 
well,  you  know,  but  how  is  it  that  this  wonderful 
master  of  yours  wears  such  a  threadbare  coat  ?  "  To 
this  query,  the  Yeoman  is  bound  to  answer  that  his 
master  is  too  clever  by  half,  or  not  clever  enough,  and 
that  he  has,  for  all  his  alchemy,  only  wasted  his 
substance  and  that  of  many  more.  The  Canon  hears 
something  of  this,   and  bidding  his  servant  hold  his 


BOUGHTON  173 

tongue,  makes  off  for  very  shame,  while  the  Yeoman 
tells  the  story  that  brings  the  party  to  Harbledown. 


XXXII 

Boughtox-undek-Blean  is  perhaps  the  neatest, 
quietest,  longest,  and  most  cheerfully  picturesque 
^'illage  on  the  Dover  Road.  It  lies  near  the  foot  of 
the  hill.     Half-way  up  is  the  church. 

In  the  churchyard  of  Boughton  there  is  a  great 
yew-tree  whose  girth  at  three  feet  from  the  ground 
was  taken  by  the  vicar  in  1894.  It  was  then  9  ft.  9  in. 
The  age  of  this  tree  is  exactly  known,  for  a  seventeenth 
century  vicar,  the  Reverend  John  Johnson,  recorded, 
''  the  little  yew-tree  by  the  south  doer  was  sett  in 
1695."  The  yew,  therefore,  expands  one  foot  in 
sixty-one  years. 

One  or  two  country  houses  with  large  gardens  and 
trimly  cut  hedges  occupy  the  crest  of  the  hill  ;  and 
just  beyond,  on  the  level  plateau  of  Dunkirk,  is  the 
church,  built  in  1840,  as  some  means  toward  civilizing 
the  untutored  savages  the  villagers  of  this  beautiful 
county  had  become  under  the  neglect  of  that  Christian 
Church  Avhose  Metropolitan  Cathedral  rises  proudly 
beyond  the  hillside  village  of  Harbledown,  less  than 
three  miles  away.  God  in  His  goodness  has  blessed 
with  a  boundless  fertility  the  fair  land  of  Kent,  so  that 
old  Michael  Drayton  merely  exj)ressed  facts  when  he 
wrote  that  rapturous  eulogy — 

O  famous  Kent  1 

What  county  hath  this  isle  that  can  compare  with  thee  ? 
That  hath  within  thyself  as  much  as  thou  canst  wish  ; 
Thy  rabbits,  venison,  fruits,  thy  sorts  of  fowl  and  fish  ; 
As  what  with  strength  compares,  thy  hay,  thy  corn, 
Xor  anything  doth  want  that  anywhere  is  good. 

But,  long  after  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  had  passed,  this  part  of  Kent  was  peopled 
with  a  peasantry  compared  with  whom  the  Hindoos 


17i  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  the  Chinese,  who  were  even  then  receiving  the 
warm  attention  of  missionary  zealots,  were  highly 
civilized  and  enlightened.  The  very  county  in  which 
Augustine  had  landed  and  reintroduced  Christianity 
thirteen  hundred  years  before  was  neglected  and 
ignored  by  the  port-drinking  parsons  and  prebendal 
wine-butts  who  drew  fat  incomes  from  the  Church  and 
starved  the  souls  of  dwellers  under  its  very  shadow  ; 
and  the  kindly  fruits  of  this  fertile  land,  with  its  furred 
and  feathered  game,  brought  no  prosperity  to  the 
people.  "  The  earth  is  the  Squire's  and  the  fulness 
thereof "  was  an  emendation  of  Holy  Writ  scored 
deeply  in  every  yokel's  brain  ;  and  here,  whither  a 
fervent  piety  had  brought  uncounted  thousands  of 
pilgrims  in  the  by-past  centuries,  the  country-folk 
lived  from  youth  to  age,  Godless  and  unlettered.  The 
Era  of  Reform  had  dawned  on  England,  sweeping  away 
much,  both  good  and  evil,  but  these  dark  districts  of 
Kent  remained  the  same,  save  for  a  slowly  growing 
feeling  of  discontent.  The  New  Poor  Law  naturally 
fostered  this  feeling  in  a  country  where  every  other 
peasant  lived  in  old  age  upon  Outdoor  Relief — and 
thought  it  the  most  reasonable  way  of  ending  a  life 
of  toil.  By  this  new  dispensation  it  became  necessary 
for  a  poor  man  to  break  up  his  home  and  go  into  the 
''  Union  "  before  relief  could  be  afforded  him  ;  and 
thus  the  Poors'  Rates  were  raised  and  the  feelings  of 
ratepayers  and  peasantry  embittered  simultaneously. 
A  man  who  felt  no  shame  in  receiving  his  half-crown  or 
five  shillings  a  week  from  the  parish,  experienced  bitter 
degradation  in  becoming  an  inmate  of  what  is  now 
generally  known  as  "  the  House,"  then  hateful  under 
the  current  name  of  "  the  Bastille,"  or  "  Bastyle,"  as 
the  English  peasant  pronounced  the  word. 

To  this  neglected  corner  of  England  came  a  romantic 
and  mysterious  stranger  in  1832.  No  one  knew  whence 
or  how  had  come  to  Canterbury  the  picturesquely 
dressed  man  of  commanding  height  and  handsome 
face  who,  staying  at  the  "  Rose  Hotel  "in  the  High 


"  COURTENAY  "  175 

Street,  soon  attracted  attention  by  his  manner  and  the 
Eastern  style  of  dress  he  affected.  That  he  was 
fabulously  rich,  and  that  his  name  was  Baron 
Rothschild  were  the  common  reports  of  the  then 
somewhat  dull  Cathedral  city,  eager  to  dwell  upon  any 
subject  that  made  for  gossip  ;  but  it  presently  appeared, 
by  his  own  accounts,  that  he  was  "  Sir  William  Percy 
Honey  wood  Courtenay,"  Knight  of  Malta  and  King  of 
Jerusalem.  This  extraordinary  man,  besides  possessing 
the  advantages  of  a  handsome  face  and  a  fine  presence, 
was  gifted  with  a  singularly  persuasive  eloquence  ;  and 
professing  himself  to  be  the  friend  of  the  people, 
oppressed  by  a  selfish  aristocracy  and  a  stupid  Govern- 
ment, he  aroused  the  wildest  enthusiasm  in  a  political 
campaign  upon  which  he  presently  embarked,  with  the 
object  of  standing  as  Parliamentary  candidate  for  the 
City  of  Canterbury.  His  charm  of  manner ;  the 
affability  with  which  he  would  converse  with  the 
meanest  peasant  ;  and  the  really  clever  political 
discourses  he  wrote  for  a  periodical  leaflet  called  the 
Lion  which  he  had  printed  and  published,  created  a 
number  of  partisans  who  flocked  round  him  as  he  rode 
through  Canterbury  and  the  surrounding  villages  ;  or 
crowded  the  High  Street  in  a  state  of  the  ^vildest 
enthusiasm  when  he  harangued  them  from  the  balcony 
of  the  "  Rose."  He  polled  over  nine  hundred  votes 
in  the  Conservative  interest  at  the  election,  and  thus 
came  within  an  easy  distance  of  becoming  a  member 
of  Parliament.  His  indiscreet  championship  of  some 
fishermen,  who  were  being  prosecuted  by  the  Revenue 
officials  for  smuggling,  gave  political  and  social  enemies 
the  looked-for  opportunity  to  injure  a  man  who  was 
so  dangerous  to  the  squires  of  Kent.  He  was  prosecuted 
in  turn,  on  a  charge  of  perjury,  and  sentenced  to  a 
term  of  imprisonment.  From  the  County  Gaol  he  was 
transferred  to  a  lunatic  asylum,  and  only  liberated  in 
the  spring  of  1838,  on  the  assurances  of  friends  in  the 
vicinity  of  Canterbury  that  they  would  take  charge 
of  him. 


176  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

Religious  mania,  seems  to  have  attacked  the  weak 
brain  of  this  excitable  enthusiast  while  in  confinement, 
and  his  conduct  presently  became  more  eccentric  than 
before.  Roaming  in  the  country  villages,  preaching 
religious  and  political  salvation  to  the  small  farmers, 
the  cottagers,  and  poor  agricultural  labourers  of  Kent, 
he  aroused  greater  enthusiasm  and  personal  love  than 
before.  He  had  always  represented  himself  to  be  a 
member  of  the  Courtenay  family,  whose  head,  the 
Earl  of  DcA'on,  claims  descent  from  Palaeologus, 
King  of  Jerusalem  in  early  Crusading  times  ;  and,  in 
addition,  he  announced  himself  as  the  rightful  heir 
to  a  number  of  important  estates  in  Kent  and  neigh- 
bouring counties.  He  let  it  be  known  that  he,  the 
noble  Sir  William  Courtenay,  Knight  of  Malta,  and 
rightful  King  of  Jerusalem,  was  not  too  proud  to 
partake  of  food  and  shelter  at  the  board  and  under 
the  roof  of  the  poorest.  When  he  came  in  power,  and 
claimed  his  rights,  the  oppressed  should  live  freely 
on  the  land  ;  the  cruel  New^  Poor  La^v  that  shut 
unfortunate  men  and  women  out  from  the  world  in 
''  Bastilles,"  as  though  Poverty  were  a  crime,  and 
separated  man  and  wife,  Avhom  God  had  declared  by 
his  handmaid,  the  Church,  man  should  not  put 
asunder,  should  be  abrogated  ;  and  the  workers  should 
have  a  share  in  the  products  of  their  toil.  The  people 
largely  responded  to  these  ad^"ances  ;  and  poor  folk, 
together  with  a  number  of  the  class  who  had  earned 
themselves  a  small  competency,  and  a  few  moneyed 
people,  believed  thoroughly  in  Courtenay.  He  was 
now  a  man  whom  many  held  to  have  been  persecuted 
and  imprisoned  for  his  championship  of  the  people, 
and  they  lo\^cd  him  for  it,  many  of  them  with  a  who'e- 
souled  devotion  that  culminated  in  worship. 
Courtenay's  extraordinary  facial  resemblance  to  the 
traditional  appearance  of  the  Saviour,  and,  finally,  his 
ultimate  assumption  of  the  character  of  the  Messiah,  led 
many  people  to  believe  that  Christ  was  actually  come  on 
earth  to  commence  His  promised  reign  ;    and  enter- 


ISI^^. 


SIR    WILLIAM    COUUTEXAY."        From  an  old  print. 


N 


BATTLE   OF   BOSSENDEN  179 

tainment,  encouragement,  and  monetary  contributions 
attended  on  their  belief. 

Matters  came  to  a  crisis  toward  the  end  of  May. 
Courtenay  had  marched  the  country  round  with 
agricultural  labourers  and  others  who  had  left  their 
work  in  the  fields  to  follow  the  Lord,  and  the  farmers 
who  thus  saAv  their  fields  remaining  untilled  grew 
anxious.  One,  bolder  than  the  rest,  applied  to  the 
magistrate  for  the  detention  of  his  men  who  had  thus 
left  their  employment  ;  and,  with  a  local  constable 
named  Mears  and  two  others,  he  came  up  with 
Courtenay's  band  on  the  morning  of  May  31st. 

Ever  since  the  28th  of  that  month,  Courtenay  had 
been  tramping  the  roads  and  lanes  with  a  band  of 
about  one  hundred  rustics.  Starting  from  Boughton 
on  that  day,  they  had  bought  bread,  and,  placing 
half  a  loaf  on  a  pole,  above  a  blue-and-white  flag  bearing 
a  lion  rampant,  had  marched  through  Goodnestone, 
Hernhill,  and  Dargate  Common,  where  they  all  fell 
down  on  their  knees  while  Courtenay  prayed.  Then 
they  proceeded  to  Bossenden  Farm,  where  they  supped 
and  slept  in  a  barn.  Leaving  Bossenden  at  three 
o'clock  the  next  morning,  their  leader  took  them  to 
Sittingbourne,  where  he  procured  breakfast  for  the 
whole  party  at  a  cost  of  25s.  The  rest  of  the  day  was 
spent  in  parading  the  country  round  Boughton,  and 
the  next  evening  was  spent  again  at  Bossenden  Farm. 
The  following  morning,  Mears  the  constable,  with  his 
l)arty  of  three,  came  up  with  them  in  a  meadow,  and 
demanded  the  surrender  of  the  farmers'  men.  The  men 
refused  to  leave,  and  Courtenay  shot  the  constable  dead 
on  the  spot.  Alarmed  at  this,  the  others  rode  off 
hastily  to  Canterbury  for  military  assistance,  while 
Courtenay  administered  the  sacrament  to  his  men 
in  bread-and-water.  All  knelt  down  and  worshipped 
him,  and  a  farmer,  one  Alexander  Foad,  kneeling, 
asked  ''  should  he  follow  him  in  body  or  in  heart  ?  " 
"  In  the  body,"  replied  Courtenay  ;  whereupon  Foad 
sprang  up,  exclaiming,   "  Oh  !    be  joyful,   be  joyful  ! 


180 


THE   DOVER   ROAD 


The   Saviour   has   accepted   me.     Go   on,    go   on,    I'll 
follow  thee  till  I  drop  !  " 

When  the  terrified  three  reached  Canterbury,  they 
secured  the  aid  of  a  company  of  the  Forty-fifth 
Regiment.  A  young  officer,  Lieutenant  Bennett, 
staying  with  friends  in  the  city,   volunteered  to  go 


COUKTENAY. 


From  an  old  inivt. 


with  them.  Coming  to  Bossenden,  they  found 
Courtenay  and  his  hundred  followers  strongly  posted 
amid  alder-bushes  in  a  deep  and  sequestered  part  of 
Bossenden  Wood.  Courtenay  exhorted  his  people  to 
behave  like  men.  "  God,"  he  said,  "  would  protect 
him  and  them.  Should  he  fall,  he  would  infallibly  rise 
again  in  greater  glory  than  now  ;  and  wounds  for  his 
sake  would  be  accounted  for  righteousness." 


DEATH   OF   "COURTENAY"  181 

Lieutenant  Bennett  advanced  and  called  upon  them 
to  surrender,  but  Courtenay,  raising  his  pistol,  shot 
him  dead,  and  his  men  leapt  out  from  the  woods 
furiously,  armed  only  ^\^th  cudgels  and  fanaticism, 
to  attack  the  soldiers.  One  volley,  however,  stretched 
many  dying,  or  bleeding  from  severe  wounds,  upon 
the  ground,  and  Courtenay  himself  fell  mortally 
wounded,  exclaiming,  "  I  have  Jesus  in  my  heart." 

Thirteen  people  in  all  were  killed  in  this  affray  : 
Mears  the  constable.  Lieutenant  Bennett,  and  Cour- 
tenay ;  eight  "  rioters  "  dying  on  the  spot,  and  two 
others  afterwards  succumbing  to  their  wounds.  Many 
more  were  crippled  for  life.  Twenty-three  were 
committed  to  gaol  :  some  transported  across  the  seas, 
and  others  sentenced  to  short  terms  of  imprisonment 
at  home.  Some  of  the  men  were  buried  in  Boughton 
Churchyard,  others  at  Hernhill,  three  miles  away, 
overlooking  the  rich  land  that  slopes  towards  the  sea. 
Here  Courtenay  was  buried,  but  the  graves  of  himself 
and  his  men  are  unmarked  by  stone  or  mound.  The 
fanaticism  of  the  peasantry  was  not  altogether 
extinguished  by  this  dreadful  ending,  and  the  tale  is 
told,  on  excellent  authority,  of  a  woman  drawing 
water  from  a  well  and  walking  half  a  mile  with  it  to 
moisten  the  lips  of  the  dead  leader,  who  had  said  that, 
should  he  fall,  a  drop  of  water  applied  to  his  mouth 
would  restore  him  from  death  to  life.  The  barbarous 
expedients  of  keeping  his  body  in  a  shed  of  the 
"  Red  Lion  "  at  Dunkirk  until  corruption  had  set  in, 
and  of  omitting  the  resurrection  clause  from  the 
Burial  Service  were  resorted  to,  lest  the  country  folk 
should  persist  in  their  belief  of  his  divinity. 

Thus  ended  the  so-called  "  Courtenay  Rebellion  " 
of  1838.  When  he  was  dead,  it  became  generally 
known  that  "  Sir  William  Courtenay  "  was  really  but 
John  Nichols  Thom,  the  son  of  a  Cornish  innkeeper 
and  farmer.  Always  a  clever  and  handsome  lad,  he 
had  grown  up  still  more  handsome,  but  with  a  religious 
enthusiasm  and  a  romantic  imagination  inherited  from 


1S2  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

his  mother.  He  was  for  a  tmie  employed  at  Truro, 
but  disappeared  for  some  years  until  his  strange  descent 
upon  Canterbury  in  1832. 

The  "  Red  Lion,"  where  the  bodies  of  the  dead 
were  laid  out,  stands  by  the  roadside  at  Dunkirk,  and 
a  cart-road  on  the  hither  side  of  it,  to  the  left  hand, 
made  long  after  this  extraordinary  affair,  and  called 
"  Courtenay  Road,"  leads  down  to  the  still  wild  and 
thickly  grown  woods  of  hazel,  alder,  and  miscellaneous 
scrub  in  which  Bossenden  Woods  are  situated.  A  gate 
— "  Courtenay  Gate  " — stands  by  the  scene  of  the 
struggle,  but  the  trees  marked  at  the  time  by  the 
rustics  in  memory  of  Courtenay  and  his  men,  are  not 
now  to  be  discovered.  The  villagers  still  bear  him 
in  memory,  and  truly  he  deserves  to  be  kept  in  mind, 
for  though  as  "Sir  William  Courtenay"  he  was  an 
impostor,  yet  he  truly  loved  the  people,  and  his 
naturally  highly-strung  mental  organization,  com- 
pletely unstrung  by  an  unnecessary  imprisonment, 
was  responsible  for  his  religious  pretensions  and  his 
blasphemous  impersonation  towards  the  end.  Worse 
men  than  he  are  honoured  in  history  and  in  public 
monuments,  and  it  seems  a  pity  that  a  childish  spite 
should  have  hidden  his  grave  and  the  graves  of  the 
poor  fellows  who  fell  that  day.  The  pilgrim  who 
takes  an  interest  in  these  strange  events,  happening 
in  this  century,  and  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria, 
and  who  happens  to  visit  the  secluded  village  of 
Hernhill,  may  look  for  the  site  of  "  Sir  William 
Courtenay 's  "  resting-place  beside  the  path  where  a 
yew-tree  spreads  a  shade  over  the  west  entrance  to 
the  village  church. 

His  death  did  good.  The  Government  ordered  a 
Commission  to  sit  and  inquire  into  the  state  of  things 
that  produced  these  events,  and  it  appeared  that  the 
district  was  Godless  and  ignorant,  a  fit  ground  for 
fanaticism  to  spring  up  in  and  flourish.  Schools 
were  built,  and  the  church  of  Dunkirk  owes  its  existence 
to  Courtenay 's  Rebellion.      The  superstitious  country- 


DUNKIRK  183 

men  who  say  the  foundations  of  the  building  gave  way- 
several  times  before  the  walls  could  be  commenced 
properly,  declare  that  his  ghost  haunted  the  place. 
But,  whatever  else  these  doings  teach,  they  teach  us  that 
a  spirit  of  selfishness,  of  neglect,  both  on  the  part  of 
Church  and  State,  brings  its  inevitable  retribution. 
The  punishment  fell  then  on  these  ignorant  hinds  ; 
what  should  be  the  punishment  in  the  hereafter  of 
those  who  were  morally  responsible  for  the  shedding 
of  their  blood  ? 


XXXIII 

Dunkirk  was  anciently  a  common  in  the  Forest  of 
Blean,  and  was  a  veritable  Alsatia,  the  resort  of 
lawless  men  who  squatted  here  because  it  was  not 
within  any  known  jurisdiction.  Hasted,  in  his 
History  of  Kent,  says  houses  were  built  here  and 
"  inhabited  by  low  persons  of  suspicious  character,  this 
being  a  place  exempt  from  the  jurisdiction  of  either 
hundred  or  parish,  as  in  a  free  port,  which  receives  all 
who  enter  it,  without  distinction.  The  whole  district 
from  hence  gained  the  name  of  '  Dunkirk.'  "  This  part 
of  the  road,  being  in  neither  hundred  or  parish,  was 
neglected  and  left  in  a  ruinous  state  until  nearly  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

At  Dunkirk,  on  passing  the  "  Gate  "  inn,  with  its  sign 
of  a  five-barred  field-gate  hanging  over  the  road,  the 
traveller  obtains  his  first  glimpse  of  Canterbury 
Cathedral,  the  Bell  Harr}^  tower  rising  grey  above 
the  green  valley  of  the  Stour.  Now  the  road  goes 
downwards  towards  Harbledown  in  a  succession  of 
switchback  u])s  and  downs  that,  noticeable  enough 
for  remark  even  at  this  lapse  of  time,  must  have 
been  much  more  marked  in  Chaucer's  day.  Here 
the  pilgrims  would  see  the  Cathedral  faintly  from 
the  crest  of  a  hillock,  losing  it  for  a  few  minutes  as 
they  rode  or  tramped  down  the  succeeding  declivity, 


184  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  regaining  it  on  the  next  hill  ;  until,  coming  to 
Harbledown,  its  majesty  burst  upon  them  in  an 
uninterrupted  vieAV.  The  striking  characteristics  of 
the  road  here  were  noted  by  Chaucer  himself,  who, 
indeed,  does  not  mention  Harbledown  by  name  ;  the 
description  is  alone  sufficient  to  identify  the  place  : — 

Wist  ye  not  where  standetli  a  little  toiin, 
Which  that  ycleped  is  Bob-up-and-doiin, 
Under  the  Blee  in  Canterbury  way. 

Here  the  weary  pilgrims  made  their  last  halt.  The 
levity  ;  the  fun  and  frolic  ;  the  sound  of  songs  and 
bagpipes  ceased,  and  the  seekers  of  Saint  Thomas  fell 
down  upon  their  knees  in  the  dusty  road  when  they 
caught  sight  of  the  golden  angel  that  then  crowned 
the  Bell  Harry  tower.  Tears  running  down  the 
cheeks  of  all,  the  pious  and  the  indifferent  alike 
resigned  themselves  to  a  religious  ecstasy  ;  and  when 
they  at  length  resumed  their  journey,  Chaucer's 
company  of  pilgrims  rode  slowly  into  the  Holy  City, 
listening  to  a  sermon  in  place  of  the  curious  tales  with 
which  they  had  hitherto  beguiled  the  way. 

Harbledown  stood  then  on  the  borders  of  the  great 
"  Bosco  de  Blean."  The  "  little  town,"  now  a  mile- 
long  stretch  of  disconnected  cottages,  was  much 
smaller,  clustering  round  the  parish  church  on  one 
side  of  the  road,  and  the  Hospital  for  Lepers,  with 
its  chapel  and  rows  of  cottages,  on  the  other.  Down 
the  road,  the  houses  of  Canterbury  were  to  be  seen 
nestling  for  protection  against  the  Castle  and  Cathedral, 
while  on  the  other  hand  stretched  the  dark  forest, 
with  the  Archbishop's  gallows  standing  on  a  clearing 
in  front.  For  not  only  did  the  dignified  clergy  point 
the  way  to  the  after  life  ;  they  not  infrequently  helped 
their  sheep  on  the  way  by  means  of  rope  or  stake. 

As  the  pilgrims  passed  that  old  Lepers'  Hospital, 
founded  by  Lanfranc  in  1084,  on  this  breezy  and 
healthful  hillside,  whence  rose  the  sweet  smell  of  the 
herbs   for   which   Harbledown    (=  Herbal   down)   has 


ERASMUS   AND   COLET  185 

derived  its  name,  one  of  the  brethren  of  this  charitable 
foundation  would  come  out  and  sprinkle  them  \^dth 
holy  water,  presenting  the  shoe  of  Saint  Thomas  to  be 
kissed,  and  praying  them  for  the  love  of  God  and  the 
Blessed  Martyr  to  give  something  towards  the  support 
of  the  poDr  lepers  of  Saint  Nicholas.  Rarely  did  the 
pilgrims  fail  to  do  so,  and  this  institution  must,  in  the 
course  of  years,  have  become  very  wealthy.  Henry  the 
Second  ;  Richard  Lion  Heart,  come  home  again  from 
captivity  ;  Edward  the  First,  with  Eleanor  of  Castile, 
on  his  return  from  Palestine  ;  the  Black  Prince,  with 
his  captives,  those  trophies  of  Poictiers — King  John  of 
France  and  his  son  Philip — and  many  another  must 
have  enriched  the  place.  John  of  France,  on  his  way 
home,  gave  ten  gold  crowns  "  pour  les  nonnains  de 
Harbledown,"  and  never,  surely,  before  nor  since,  has 
an  old  shoe  brought  so  much  luck  as  Becket's  brought 
here.  For  centuries  the  devout  came  and  pressed  their 
lips  to  it,  dropping  coins  into  the  wooden  alms-box 
that  is  still  shown,  together  with  a  mazer  inscribed  with 
the  deeds  of  Guy  of  Warwick,  and  containing  the  great 
crystal  with  which  the  shoe  was  decorated.  But  times 
change  and  habits  of  thought  with  them,  and  although 
the  scenery  remains  as  of  old,  little  else  is  left  of  the 
days  of  pilgrimage.  How  like  the  present  aspect  of 
the  place  is  to  the  appearance  it  presented  three 
hundred  and  eighty  years  ago  may  be  seen  from  the 
writings  of  Disiderius  Erasmus. 

When  Erasmus  and  Dean  Colet  were  returning 
in  1512  from  their  unconventional  pilgrimage  to 
Canterbury,  they  came,  two  miles  from  the  city,  to  a 
steep  and  narrow  part  of  the  road,  overhung  by  high 
banks  on  either  side.  The  scenery  is  the  same  as 
then.  The  selfsame  banks  of  an  equal  abruptness  still 
rise  above  the  road  ;  the  rough  and  crazy  flight  of 
steps  still  leads  up  to  the  gateway  of  Lanfranc's  old 
Hospital  for  Lepers,  the  Hospital  of  Harbledown. 
The  immemorial  yews  are  here  even  now  ;  one  still 
flourishing,  the  other  decayed.     But  the  Hospital  has 


186  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

been  rebuilt,  and  only  the  grey  old  Church  of  Samt 
Nicholas  remains.  Modern  pilgrims,  too,  may  pass 
without  the  attentions  at  one  time  bestowed  on  all 
who  passed  this  way  ;  attentions  which  disgusted  the 
stern  and  matter-of-fact  Colet,  and  amused  his  some- 
what cynically-humorous  companion.  When  they 
came  to  the  gateway  of  the  Hospital,  there  tottered 
down  the  steps  an  aged  bedesman,  and,  sprinkling 
plentifully  with  holy  water  both  themselves  and  their 
liorses,  he  stepped  forward,  presenting  the  upper- 
leather  of  an  old  shoe,  bound  in  brass  and  ornamented 
with  a  great  crj^stal,  to  be  kissed.  This  was  the 
remnant  of  the  Holy  Shoe  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  one 
of  the  most  revered  and  valued  possessions  of  the 
Hospital,  kissed  reverently  by  many  thousands  of 
pilgrims  of  every  degree,  and  a  great  aid  to  the  flow 
of  alms.  But  Colet,  who  had  already  seen  too  much 
of  this  combined  hero-  and  relic-worship,  could  no 
longer  restrain  the  wrath  which  had  been  rising  ever 
since  he  had  left  the  shrine  down  below,  with  its  old 
bones  and  dirty  rags.  He  was  covered,  too,  with  the 
holy  water  which  the  old  man  had  so  recklessly 
showered  on  them.  "  What  !  "he  shouted  to  Erasmus, 
"  Do  these  asses  expect  us  to  kiss  the  shoes  of  all 
good  men  that  have  ever  lived  ?  Why,  they  might 
as  well  bring  us  their  spittle  to  be  kissed,  or  other 
bodily  excrements  !  "  The  ancient  bedesman  was  hurt, 
and  possibly,  had  he  been  a  younger  man,  he  would 
have  hurt  this  scoffer  in  return.  However,  he  said 
nothing,  and  the  cynical  Erasmus  (for  cynicism  ahvayfi 
goes  with  a  really  kind  heart)  gave  him  a  small  coin, 
less  from  piety,  you  may  be  sure,  than  as  a  salve  to 
his  wounded  feelings.     And  then  they  went  away. 

The  shoe  has  vanished,  but  the  crystal  is  still  a 
valued,  if  not  valuable,  possession  of  the  institution, 
and  may  be  handled  by  the  curious  who  can  reflect 
upon  its  having  also  been  touched  by  those  two 
pilgrims,  Erasmus  the  learned  writer,  and  Colet  the 
founder  of  Saint  Paul's  School. 


CANTERBURY  187 


XXXIV 


The  entrance  to  Canterbury  from  London  is  one  of 
the  most  impressive  approaches  to  a  city  to  be  found 
in  all  England.  The  traveller  passes  through  the 
suburb  of  Saint  Dunstan,  by  the  old  parish  church 
that  holds  the  severed  head  of  Sir  Thomas  More, 
coming  into  the  city  through  a  street  of  ancient 
houses  and  under  the  postern  arch  of  West  Gate. 
The  great  drum  towers  of  West  Gate  mark  the  ancient 
limits  of  the  mediaeval  city,  and  guard  an  opening 
in  the  city  wall  which  stood  on  the  further  side  of  the 
little  river  Stour.  A  drawbridge  effectually  prevented 
the  entrance  of  an  enemy,  and  when  the  strongly- 
guarded  gate  was  closed  at  nightfall,  belated  citizens 
had  to  stay  outside  and  put  up  with  the  inconvenience 
as  best  they  could,  in  company  with  such  travellers 
and  pilgrims  as  arrived  late  from  too  much  story- 
telling, feasting,  or  praying,  on  the  road.  For  the 
accommodation  of  these  travellers  the  suburbs  of 
Saint  Dunstan  and  West  Gate  arose  early  without  the 
walls  of  the  city,  and  several  inns — the  "  Star  "  and 
the  "  Falstaff  "  among  them — remain  to  show  how 
considerable  was  the  belated  company  entertained  here. 

West  Gate,  as  we  now  see  it,  is  the  successor  of  a 
much  earher  gate,  and  was  built  by  the  ill-fated  Simon 
of  Sudbury.  It  is  the  only  one  remaining  of  all  the 
seven  gates  of  the  city,  and  owes  its  preservation 
rather  to  its  convenience  as  a  prison  for  poor  debtors, 
than  to  any  love  our  eighteenth-century  barbarians 
had  for  mediaeval  architecture.  It  is  to-day  a  police- 
station,  and  thus  carries  on  the  frugal  and  utilitarian 
traditions  which  originally  spared  it  in  the  destruction 
of  much  else  of  beauty  and  interest. 

Ancient  buildings  are  carefully  preserved  noAvadays. 
Why  ?  Can  we  flatter  ourselves  that  the  provincial 
mind  is  more  enlightened  ?  I  am  afraid  not,  and 
must    sorrowfully    come    to    tlie    conclusion    that    the 


1S8  THE   DOVER    ROAD 

ifrnorant  authorities  of  our  countr}^  towns  would  be 
as  ready  as  ever  to  demolish  their  old  monuments, 
did  not  their  natural  shrewdness  teach  them  that,  as 
strangers  come  from  all  quarters  of  the  world  to  view 
their  historical  remains,  they  must  be  regarded  in 
the  light  of  a  valuable  asset.  So  far,  they  are 
undoubtedly  right.  Let  them  "  restore  "  and  tear 
down  the  remaining  gates  and  towers  and  castles  in 
the  provincial  towns  of  England,  and  they  will  prove, 
in  the  scarcity  of  visitors  that  will  follow  on  their 
Vandalism,  how  valuable,  in  more  senses  than  one,  are 
the  ancient  ways. 

Canterbury  has  seen  a  great  deal  of  this  senseless 
disregard  for  antiquity.  Six  gates,  as  I  have  said, 
were  wantonly  destroyed,  but  the  passion  for  destruc- 
tion did  not  stop  here.  The  remains  of  the  Norman 
castle  were  years  ago  converted  into  a  coal-hole  of  the 
local  gasAVorks,  and  are  still  put  to  that  degradation  ; 
great  stretches  of  the  city  walls,  with  their  watch- 
towers,  were  taken  down  for  corn-mills  to  be  built 
with  their  materials  ;  and,  worse  than  all,  stupidity 
of  tliis  kind  ran  riot  among  the  Dean  and  Chapter  in 
the  thirties.  For  seven  hundred  and  fifty  years  had 
Lanfranc's  north-western  tower  of  the  Cathedral  stood, 
while  the  south-western  had  been  rebuilt  nearly  three 
hundred  years  before.  This  dissimilarity  vexed  those 
assembled  holders  of  fat  prebends  and  decanal  loaves 
and  fishes,  who  drank  port  and  read  The  Times,  and 
had  not  a  single  sensible  idea  in  their  meagre  brain- 
pans, beyond  a  notion  that  one  thing  ought  to  match 
with  another,  and  that  as  every  Jack  should  have  his 
Jill,  so  also  should  everything  else  possess  a  pendant. 
How  truly  British  ! 

Well,  if  these  western  towers  did  not  match,  they 
must  be  made  to  ;  and  so  to  find  an  excuse  for  pulling 
down  the  older  one.  There  is  always  some  graceless 
modern  architect,  with  palm  itching  for  five-per-cent. 
commissions,  who  would  undertake  or  advise  anything 
to  procure  a  job,   and  the  Dean  and  Chapter  found 


I  ISJBf ;( 


f/ 


190  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

such  a  man,  who  conceived  Lant'ranc's  Avork  to  have 
gone  bej^ond  repair.  To  this  creature,  Charles  Austin, 
their  own  diocesan  architect,  who  should  have  been 
earnest  to  preserve,  rather  than  to  destroy,  they  i^ave 
instructions  for  the  pulling  down  of  the  Norman  Avork 
and  for  its  replacement  by  an  exact  copy  of  the 
Perpendicular  tower.  The  thing  was  done  in  1832. 
So  httle  beyond  repair  and  so  sturdily  strong  was  that 
Norman  tower,  that  it  Avas  necessary  to  bloAV  it  up 
Avith  gunpoAA'der.  A  German  invading  Goth  and 
malignant  destroyer  could  do  no  more. 

The  AA^ork  of  demolition  and  the  building  of  the 
ncAV  tower  was  done  at  a  cost  of  £25,000,  The  architect 
pocketed  £1,250  as  commission,  and  all  Avho  care  for 
architecture  hsixe  lost  one  of  the  very  fcAv  Norman 
Cathedral  toAv^ers  knoAvn  in  England.  But  then,  hoAv 
exactly  those  toAvers  match,  and  how  satisfied  must 
be  all  good  people  Avho  Avould  sacrifice  everything  for 
the  sake  of  uniformity  ! 

The  main  thoroughfare  of  Canterbury,  to  which  the 
old  West  Gate  giA^es  access,  has  undergone  no  little 
rebuilding  since  the  days  of  gables  and  timber  fronts, 
and  yet  it  retains  in  the  aggregate  much  of  that  old- 
AA'orld  air  for  Avhich  we  reasonably  look  in  a  Cathedral 
city.  Long  and  narroAV  the  street  remains  ;  quaint 
are  many  of  the  buildings  that  line  it.  Across  it, 
under  narrow  bridges,  floAV  tAvo  branches  of  the  little 
river  Stour. 

An  amusing  incident  belonged  to  the  "  Red  Lion." 

One  of  the  most  outstanding  historical  figures  upon 
the  DoAxr  Road  is  that  no  less  kindly  than  courtly 
Ambassador,  the  Due  de  NiA^ernais.  That  cultured 
Frenchman  Avas  employed  by  his  soA^ereign,  Louis  the 
Fifteenth,  in  negotiating  a  Treaty  of  Peace  Avhich  should 
conclude  that  disastrous  contest  to  France,  the  ScA'cn 
Years'  War.  An  exchange  of  Ambassadors  AA^as  effected 
betAveen  Great  Britain  and  France  ;  the  Duke  of 
Bedford  crossing  the  Channel  to  Calais  in  the  early 
part  of  September,  1762,  the  Due  de  NiA'crnais  voyaging 


THE   DUG   DE   NIVERNAIS  191 

to  Dover,  and  landing  there  on  the  morning  of 
September  11.  The  elements  had  been  unkind  to 
him,  and  his  passage  occupied  no  less  than  five  hours  ; 
but  Nivernais  handed  over  to  Captain  Ray,  the 
commander  of  the  Princess  Augusta  yacht  (the  vessel 
in  which  he  had  voyaged  and  suffered  the  most  horrible 
pangs  of  sea-sickness),  the  sum  of  one  hundred  guineas, 
to  be  divided  among  the  crew.  Perhaps  the  unbounded 
gratitude  with  which  he  found  himself  again  upon  the 
shore — even  though  it  were  not  his  nati^'e  land — 
accounted  for  the  magnitude  of  this  largesse. 

The  country  was  not  eager  for  the  peace  which 
exhausted  France  desired,  and  looked  upon  Nivernais' 
commission  rather  as  an  attempt  to  curtail  the  glory 
which  England  and  Englishmen  were  reaping  on  land 
and  achieving  by  sea  ;  but  the  French  Ambassador 
was  received  with  a  show  of  enthusiasm  and  the 
discharge  of  cannon  as  he  landed  at  Dover,  and  a 
crowd  of  shouting  countrymen  cheered  him  as,  bowing 
his  acknowledgments  of  this  reception,  he  bowled  away 
in  a  coach  and  six  horses,  accompanied  by  a  retinue 
of  twelve  persons. 

Bowled,  did  I  say  ?  Nay  :  the  motion  of  the  ill- 
hung  equipages  of  that  day,  tumbling  along  over  the 
wretched  roads  of  those  times,  resembled  little  the 
smooth  career  of  bowls  gliding  over  trimly  shaven 
bowling-greens.  Rather  should  the  motion  be  described 
as  a  series  of  hesitating  lurches  and  unexpected  jolts  ; 
and  this  in  the  comparative  excellence  of  the  highways 
in  September  ! 

The  Ambassador  had  started  upon  his  journey  from 
Dover  to  London  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  early 
hour  of  the  morning  when  he  had  landed  from  the 
"  Chops  of  the  Channel  **  ;  but  he  arrived  at  Canterbury 
too  late  for  further  progress  to  be  made  that  day. 
Therefore  he  put  up  in  the  Cathedral  city,  after  having 
had  the  empty  satisfaction,  to  a  traveller  in  his 
exhausted  condition,  of  being  received  en  grande  tenue 
by  the  garrison. 


£ 

*•. 

d. 

1 

4 

0 

15 

10 

0 

3 

0 

0 

2 

15 

0 

10 

8 

8 

3 

0 

0 

2 

10 

0 

1 

7 

0 

2 

0 

0 

2 

16 

0 

44 

10 

8 

192  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

The  "  Red  Lion  "  inn  was  a,t  that  time  the  proper 
place  for  a  personage  of  his.  quahty  to  He,  and  so  the 
Duke  with  his  party  stayed  there  the  night.  For  that 
night's  lodging  for  twelve  persons,  with  a  frugal  supper 
in  which  oysters,  fowls,  boiled  mutton,  poached  eggs, 
and  fried  whiting  figure,  the  landlord  of  the  "  Red 
Lion  "  presented  an  account  of  over  £44.  This  truly 
grand  bill  has  been  preserved,  not,  let  us  hope,  for  the 
emulation  of  other  hotel-keepers,  but  by  way  of  a 
"  terrible  example."     Here  it  is  : — 

Tea,  coffee,  and  chocolate 

Supper  for  self  and  servants 

Bread  and  beer       

Fruit 

Wine  and  punch     

Wax  candles  and  charcoal  

Broken  glass  and  china     

Lodging        

Tea,  coffee,  and  chocolate 

Chaise  and  horses  for  the  next  sta''e 


The  Duke  paid  his  account  without  a  murmur,  only 
remarking  that  innkeepers  at  this  rate  should  soon 
grow  rich  ;  but  it  was,  doubtless,  with  great  relief 
that  he  left  Canterbury  for  Rochester,  where  he  dined 
the  next  day  for  three  guineas. 

News  of  this  extraordinary  bill  was  soon  spread  all 
over  England.  It  was  printed  in  the  newspapers  amid 
other  marvels,  disasters,  and  atrocities,  and  mine  host 
of  the  "  Red  Lion,"  like  Byron,  woke  up  one  morning 
to  find  himself  famous.  He  would  probably  have 
preferred  h  s  native  obscurity  to  the  fierce  light 
of  publicity  that  beat  upon  him  ;  for  the  country 
gentlemen,  scandalized  at  his  rapacity,  boycotted  his 
inn,  and  his  brother  innkeepers  of  Canterbury  disowned 
him.  The  unfortunate  man  wrote  to  the  St.  James's 
Chronicle,  endeavouring  to  justify  himself,  and  com- 
plaining bitterly  of  the  harm  that  had  been  \\Tought 
to  his  business  by  the  constant  billeting  of  soldiers 
upon  him.  But  it  was  in  vain  to  protest,  and  so  bitter 
was  the  feeling  against  him  that  his  trade  fell  off,  and 
he  was  ruined  in  six  months. 


M.    LE    DUC  193 

Meanwhile,  the  Due  de  Nivernais  was  negotiating 
for  peace  at  the  Court  of  Saint  James's  ;  and,  what 
with  the  difficulties  of  diplomacy  and  the  rigours  of 


THE    DUC    DE    XIVERXAIS. 

the  climate,  he  passed  but  a  miserable  time.  "  This 
country,"  he  wrote,  "  is  a  cruel  country  for  negotiation  ; 
one  needs  to  have  a  body  and  a  spirit  of  iron,"  and 
how  little  like  iron  was  his  frame  may  perhaps  be 
o 


19i  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

judged  from  tliis  portraiture  of  him,  whieh  shows  a 
wistful-looking,  hollow-cheeked  elderly  man,  with  nose 
and  chin  and  eyes  unnaturally  prominent.  The  carica- 
turists took  a  mean  advantage  of  his  phenomenal 
leanness,  and  called  him  the  "  Duke  of  Barebones," 
and  a  Court  witling  made  the  cruel  jest  that  "  the 
French  had  sent  over  the  preliminaries  of  an 
ambassador  to  conclude  the  preliminaries  of  a  peace." 
He  eventually  did  conclude  a  peace,  and,  returning 
to  Dover,  left  (how  thankfully  !)  for  France  on  May  22, 
1763.  Let  us  hope  that,  after  all  his  trials  with  the 
English  hotel-keepers  and  the  English  climate,  he 
experienced  a  better  passage  across  the  Channel  than 
when  he  first  crossed  it. 


XXXV 

Not  all  visitors  to  Canterbury  were  so  evilly  entreated 
as  the  Due  de  Ni\"ernais.  Indeed,  the  city  has  been 
remarkable  rather  for  its  lavish  and  abounding 
hospitality  than  for  any  attempted  over-reaching  of  the 
stranger.  But  since  those  strangers  were  chiefly 
Kings  and  Emperors,  and  great  personages  of  that  kind, 
perhaps  it  is  little  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  citizens, 
to  say  nothing  of  those  greedy  time-servers,  the  Priors 
and  monks  of  Christ  Church  Priory  and  the  Priory  of 
Saint  Augustine,  rendered  to  those  great  ones  of  the 
earth  the  most  abject  suit  and  service.  Almost  every 
English  sovereign  has  been  here  at  some  time  or 
another,  and  many  a  foreign  potentate  besides. 
Henry  the  Second,  it  is  true,  walked  into  the  city, 
barefoot,  from  Harbledown,  and  so  to  the  Cathedral, 
doing  abject  penance  for  the  murder  of  Becket,  four 
years  previously,  and  it  seems  to  be  equally  true  that 
as  he  proceeded  to  Becket's  shrine  he  was  scourged  by 
the  monks  on  his  bare  back  and  shoulders  with  knotted 
cords  ;  but  I  think  they  would  have  laid  on  harder  and 
with  a  better  will  had  the  penitent  not  been  of  so 


HENRY   THE   EIGHTH  195 

exalted  a  station.  In  short,  I  have  httle  faith  in  the 
reported  rigours  of  that  punishment.  A  few  years 
later  came  Henry's  son,  Richard  Lion  Heart,  enlarged 
from  his  foreign  prison.  He  landed  at  the  port  of 
Sandwich,  and  walked  barefoot  into  Canterbury — so 
inimical  was  Saint  Thomas  to  shoe-leather.  Edward 
the  First  was  pious  enough  to  lay  the  Crown  of  Scotland 
before  the  Saint's  shrine,  and  another  Edward — the 
Black  Prince— came  here,  in  all  humility,  with  the 
captive  King  of  France.  Another  warrior,  as  brave 
and  as  ill-fated — ^Henry  the  Fifth — paid  his  devoirs  to 
Becket  as  he  came  up  the  road,  fresh  from  his  glorious 
French  campaigns.  Another  Henry,  the  Eighth  and 
last  of  his  name,  bowed  before  the  shrine  in  1520, 
in  company  with  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth. 
On  that  occasion  he  was  as  fervent  a  worshipper  as 
could  well  be  desired,  and  as  sincere  as  it  is  possible 
for  a  man  to  be  who  is  at  the  same  time  a  King  and 
half  a  AVelshman.  No  thoughts  of  spoliation  of  the 
Church  then  passed  his  mind.  Indeed,  the  ecclesias- 
tical dignitaries  of  the  time  made  much  of  his  visit, 
which  seems  to  have  been  celebrated  in  a  more  than 
royal  manner,  if  we  may  trust  the  chroniclers. 

From  Dover  the  two  monarchs  rode  into  Canterbury, 
preceded  by  Wolsey,  and  followed  by  a  long  procession 
of  knights  and  esquires,  men-at-arms  and  archers. 
The  clergy,  dressed  in  all  the  splendour  of  which  the 
Romish  Church  is  capable,  thronged  the  streets  to 
welcome  the  King,  and  knew  as  little  about  the 
calamities  presently  to  befall  them  as  fat  geese  suspect 
the  significance  of  Michaelmas  Day.  Archbishop 
AVarham  welcomed  the  sovereigns  to  the  Cathedral, 
and  probably  thought  with  a  secret  joy  upon  the  ways 
of  Providence  which  had  removed  Prince  Arthur  from 
this  world  to  ])lace  his  younger  brother,  Henry,  upon 
the  throne.  For,  had  Prince  Arthur  lived  to  be 
King  of  P^ngland,  the  man  whom  we  know  as  Henry  the 
Eighth  would  have  been  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
That  was  the  career  designed  for  him,  and,  had  Prince 


196  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

Arthur  not  died,  how  very  differently  things  might 
have  been  fashioned  ! 

Archbishop  Warham  could,  as  it  happened,  afford 
to  look  upon  the  ways  of  Providence  with  approval, 
for  these  events  had  made  him  Primate,  and  he 
celebrated  his  accession  to  the  Primacy  with  a  banquet 
whose  details  seem  to  belong  to  the  Arabian  Nights 
rather  than  to  sober  history.  Courses  innumerable 
(and  nasty,  too,  according  to  modern  ideas)  graced 
the  festive  board  on  this  occasion,  and  the  guests 
who  partook  of  them  made  pigs  of  themselves  over 
what  the  contemporary  historian  of  these  things  calls 
the  "  subtylties  "  that  bulked  so  largely  at  the  feast. 
To  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  the  high  steward,  fell 
the  honour,  or  the  duty,  of  serving  the  Archbishop 
with  his  own  hands  ;  and,  partly  in  recognition  of 
his  services,  and  partly,  no  doubt,  in  consideration 
of  his  being  so  great  a  gourmand,  he  was  accorded  the 
privilege  of  staying  three  days  at  the  new  Archbishop's 
nearest  manor,  in  order  that  he  might  be  bled.  That 
seems  to  have  been  the  necessary  performance  after 
partaking  of  too  many  "  subtylties." 

But  all  this  while  I  have  been  keeping  His  Most 
Christian  Majesty,  Henry  the  Eighth,  waiting  ;  and, 
having  done  so,  it  is  well  for  me  I  am  not  his  con- 
temporary, for  men  did  things  so  derogatory  to  his 
dignity  only  at  the  peril  of  losing  their  heads. 

Well,  eighteen  years  later,  the  King,  who  had  knelt 
before  Becket's  bones,  was  engaged  in  uprooting  the 
ancient  faith,  and  his  fury  was  naturally  felt  more 
acutely  here,  on  this  the  most  sacred  spot  of  English 
soil.  Becket  was  proclaimed  a  traitor,  and  in  April, 
1538,  the  martyr,  dead  three  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
years,  was  summoned  to  appear  in  Court  to  show 
reason  why  his  shrine  should  not  be  destroyed  and 
his  name  blotted  out  from  the  records  of  the  English 
Church.  Thirty  days  were  allowed  "  Thomas  Becket  " 
(thus  the  Royal  Proclamation  styled  him,  without 
title  or  handle  of  any  sort  to  his  name)  to  appear. 


THE   "REGALE''   RUBY  197 

and  wlien  he  failed  to  present  himself,  sentence  was 
pronounced  against  him  by  default.  The  sentence 
was  that  his  bones  should  be  burnt  and  scattered  to 
the  winds  ;  a  poor  and  inadequate  kind  of  revenge. 
More  to  the  point,  perhaps,  was  the  spoliation  of  the 
shrine  of  the  Blessed  Thomas  ;  for  the  Royal  Com- 
missioners sent  to  strip  it,  loaded  twenty-six  carts 
with  the  valuables  that  had  accumulated  here  during 
all  those  centuries,  in  addition  to  two  coffers  of  jewels 
and  gold  containing  the  ransom  of  kings. 

The  King  kept  some  of  the  jewels  for  his  own  personal 
use.  Louis  the  Seventh  of  France  had,  a  few  years 
after  the  murder  of  Becket,  visited  the  Shrine  of 
St.  Thomas,  and  had  left  there  a  magnificent  ruby. 
Not  merely  had  he  left  it  ;  for  the  ruby — the  "  Regale 
of  France,"  it  was  called — left  itself,  so  to  speak. 
In  point  of  fact,  it  had  been  suggested  to  the  French 
king  that  he  should  present  that  magnificent  stone  to 
the  Shrine,  and  he  was  objecting  to  do  so,  when  the 
great  ruby  leapt  from  the  ring  he  was  wearing  and 
affixed  itself  to  the  Saint's  reliquary,  where  it  remained 
"  shining  so  brightly  that  it  was  impossible  to  look 
steadily  at  it." 

So  the  visitor  went  away  without  that  gorgeous 
stone,  marvelling  greatly,  as  we  do,  some  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  event. 

The  ruby,  indifferently  described  as  being  "  as  large 
as  a  hen's  egg,''  and  "  as  large  as  a  man's  thumb-nail," 
was  appropriated  by  Henry  the  Eighth. 

Thus  did  Henry  repay  the  magnificent  hospitality 
extended  him  years  before  at  Canterbury.  The  city 
saw  but  little  of  Royalty  for  many  years  afterwards  ; 
and,  indeed,  it  was  not  until  Charles  the  First  came 
here  to  be  married  in  the  Cathedral  that  any  great 
State  function  revived  its  past  glories.  Then  the 
display  made  was  worthy  of  local  traditions.  Feasting 
and  general  jollity  prevailed  while  the  newly- wecl 
King  and  Queen  remained  in  the  city.  A  few  years 
later,  when  loyalt}^  was  the  passion  of  only  a  minority 


19S  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  the  Kinor  was  warriiicr  with  the  Parhamcnt,  the 
Dover  Road  and  Canterbury  witnessed  a  strange 
journey.  None  knew  of  it,  for  the  matter  was  secret. 
It  was,  in  fact,  tlie  smugorhng  out  of  the  country  of  the 
little  Princess  Henrietta,  away  from  the  custody  of  the 
King's  enemies.  The  French  tutor  of  the  Princess 
afterwards  told  the  story  of  this  escape.  The  Countess 
of  Dalkeith  was  in  charge  of  the  little  girl  at  Oatlands, 
and  resolved  at  all  hazards  to  restore  her  to  her  mother 
in  France.  Disguising  herself,  this  tall  and  elegant 
body,  one  of  the  handsome  Villiers  family,  acted  the 
part  of  a  poor  French  servant,  little  better  than  a  beggar. 
She  even  fitted  herself  with  a  hump,  and,  carrying  a 
bundle  of  linen,  and  with  the  Princess  dressed  in  rags, 
set  out  by  road  for  Dover,  with  the  girl  on  her  back,  in 
the  character  of  her  little  boy  Pierre. 

On  the  road,  we  are  told,  the  Princess  indignantly 
tried  to  tell  everyone  she  was  not  "  Picric,"  but  the 
Princess.  Fortunately,  no  one  understood,  and  these 
strange  travellers  arrived  safely  at  Dover  and  crossed  to 
Calais. 

The  adventure  seems  incredible  when  we  consider 
that  the  Princess  Henrietta  Maria  was  born  June  16, 
1644,  and  that  this  journey  to  Dover  is  stated  to  have 
taken  place  towards  the  end  of  July,  1646.  We  have 
to  ask  ourselves,  "  Could  a  child  of  two  years  and  a 
little  over  one  month,  understand  and  talk  like  that  ?  " 
But  the  source  of  the  story  has  been  noted  ;  and  we  are 
to  recollect,  as  to  the  authentic  date  of  the  adventure, 
that  Edmund  Waller,  the  courtly  poet,  on  New  Year's 
Day,  1647,  presented  the  Queen,  then  in  Paris,  with  a 
23oem  on  the  subject,  in  which  the  Countess  of  Dalkeith's 
exploit  is  referred  to  : — 

The  faultless  nymph,  changing  her  faultless  shape 
Becomes  unhandsome,  handsomely  to  'scape. 

Canterbury's  rejoicings  were  not  renewed  until  after 
the  Commonwealth  had  come  and  run  its  course,  and 
the  Stuarts  were  free  once  more  to  show  their  curious 
facility  for  rendering  their  House  unjDopular. 


OLD-TIME   TRAVELLERS  199 

And  after  the  romantic  times  of  that  unfortunate 
family  come  the  stohd  annals  of  Dutch  William, 
Anne,  and  the  unimaginative  Georges — a  line  of 
sovereigns  for  whom  enthusiasm  Avas  impossible. 
Mean  in  their  vices  and  contemptible  in  their  virtues, 
they  lived  their  lives  and  reigned  over  England,  and 
posted  along  the  Dover  Road  on  their  way  to  or  from 
beloved  Hanover  ;  and  no  man's  heart  beat  the  faster 
for  their  coming,  and  none  sorrowed  overmuch  for 
their  going.  All  the  Georges,  and  William  the  Fourth, 
too,  were  here,  I  believe,  and  in  their  train  came  the 
lean  Keilmanseggs,  the  fleshly  Schwellenbergs,  and  a 
variety  of  greasy  Germans,  fresh  from  the  terrible 
voyage  over  sea  ;  but  no  one  cares  in  the  least  either 
where  they  went  or  whither  they  did  not  go. 

But  they  all  travelled  with  what  we  must  now 
consider  a  snail's  pace.  The  wealthiest,  the  most 
powerful,  could  go  no  faster  than  horses  managed  to 
drag  them.  When  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  summoned  in 
haste  from  Rome  by  William  the  Fourth  to  form  a 
Ministry  in  1834,  he  travelled  full  speed  to  London,  and 
the  journey  took  him  just  within  a  fortnight.  He  noted 
in  his  journal  that  he  accomplished  it  in  exactly  the 
same  time  as  the  Emperor  Hadrian  had  done  seventeen 
hundred  years  before  him.  The  means  of  travel  at  the 
disposal  of  both  statesmen  were  identical — post 
horses. 

Another  Royal  visitor  (of  a  much  later  date  indeed) 
discovered  the  "  chops  of  the  Channel  "  to  be  no 
respectors  of  personages.  In  fact.  His  Serene  Highness 
Prince  Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,  who  was  come 
across  the  water  to  wed  his  Cousin,  Queen  Victoria  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  ("  Empress  of  India  "  was 
yet  in  the  loom  of  the  future),  found  his  serenity  as 
much  disturbed  by  the  roughness  of  his  passage  as 
falls  to  the  lot  of  most  bad  sailors,  of  whatever  social 
stratum.  He  was,  in  short,  very  ill,  and  unable  to 
proceed  any  farther  that  day.  On  the  morrow,  Friday, 
February  7,  1840,  he  resumed  his  journey  to  London, 


200  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

by  road,  of  course,  for  the  railways  that  serve  Dover 
(and  serve  it  badly,  too  !)  had  not  as  yet  been  built. 

Starting  about  midday,  the  father  of  our  future 
kings  reached  Canterbury  at  two  o'clock.  The 
inevitable  Address  was,  it  is  surely  scarcely  necessary 
to  add,  immediately  forthcoming,  to  which  the  Prince 
as  inevitably  "  replied  graciously "  ;  afterwards 
attending  service  in  the  Cathedral,  where,  as  he  could 
have  understood  but  little  of  the  service,  he  must  have 
been  supremely  bored.  The  Cathedral  was  thronged 
with  crowds  who  came  not  so  much  in  order  to  pray 
as  to  peep  at  the  Princeling  whom  the  young  Queen 
had  delighted  to  honour. 

The  Prince  slept  at  Canterbury  that  night,  and  left, 
with  his  suite,  en  route  for  Chatham  at  half-past  nine 
the  next  morning,  pursued  by  a  body  of  clergymen 
with  an  Address.  Alarmed  at  this  appalling  eagerness 
on  the  part  of  servile  Britons  to  read  lengthy  orations 
of  which  he  understood  not  a  word,  the  Prince  gave 
directions  for  the  cavalcade  to  drive  faster,  and  so  they 
swept  on  through  Chatham  and  Rochester,  without 
stopping  to  hear  what  the  Mayors  and  Corporations 
of  those  places  had  to  say.  Those  deadl}^  Addresses 
were,  in  fact,  "  taken  as  read,"  and  the  Mayors, 
Aldermen  and  others  returned  home  with  their 
ridiculous  parchments,  wiser,  and,  it  is  to  be  feared,  not 
only  sadder,  but  less  loyal  men. 

At  Dartford,  the  bridegroom-elect  was  met  by  one  of 
the  Queen's  carriages,  and  he  thereupon  changed  from 
his  travelling  chariot  to  enter  London  in  some  degree  of 
State.  At  New  Cross  an  escort  of  the  14th  Dragoons 
was  waiting,  and,  instead  of  proceeding  along  the 
classic  Old  Kent  Road,  and  so  to  the  traditional 
entrance  to  London  by  London  Bridge,  he  went  to 
town  by  way  of  romantic  Peckham  and  idyllic 
Camberwell,  ending  his  journey  at  that  dream  of 
architectural  beauty,  Buckingham  Palace.  What 
followed  :  How  the  Times  waxed  violent  and  denuncia- 
tory of  Lord  Melbourne  and  the  frivolous  entourage 


CANTERBURY  CATHEDRAL      201 

with  wliicli  he  had  surrounded  the  Queen  ;  liow  that 
paper  preached  homihes,  and  how  all  the  others,  nearly 
without  exception,  gushed  fulsome  nonsense,  it  is  not 
the  business  of  the  present  historian  to  set  forth. 
All  he  has  to  do  is  to  remark  that  with  this  event  closes 
the  history  of  Royal  processions  along  the  Dover  Road. 
The  hilly  road  to  Dover  is  not  remarkable  for  sporting 
events,  but  two  may  here  be  noted.  On  April  1st,  1903, 
Mr.  Walter  de  Creux-Hutchinson  walked  from  Dover  to 
London  Bridge  in  14  hrs.,  19  mins.,  40  sees.  ;  and  on 
September  18th,  1909,  A.  G.  Norman  cycled  from 
London  to  Dover  and  back  in  8  hrs.,  8  mins. 


XXXVI 

The  chief  point  of  interest  in  Canterbury  is,  of  course, 
the  Cathedral,  the  bourne  to  which  countless  pilgrims 
came  from  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  to  gain  the 
goodwill  and  intercedence  of  that  thrice  sacred  and 
potent  Saint  Thomas  whose  peculiar  sanctity  over- 
topped by  far  that  of  any  other  English  martyr,  and 
whose  shrine  possessed  scarce  less  efficacy  than  that  of 
the  most  renowned  Continental  resorts  of  the  pious. 

But  long  before  Becket's  day  the  Metropolitan 
Cathedral  of  Canterbury  had  arisen.  The  establishment 
of  the  See  dates  from  the  time  when  Augustine  landed 
at  Ebbsfleet,  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  in  a.d.  596,  and, 
marching  at  the  head  of  his  forty  Benedictine  monks, 
held  a  conference  with  Ethelbert,  King  of  Kent,  by 
whose  favour  he  was  allowed  to  preach  Christianity  to 
the  Saxons.  Thus  was  the  Cross  of  Christ  re-introduced 
to  these  islands  where  it  had  flourished  centuries  before 
among  the  Romans  and  the  Romanized  British. 

Saint  Augustine,  however,  does  not  deserve  quite 
all  the  honour  that  has  been  paid  him  for  his  work. 
He  undertook  his  mission  against  his  will  and  only 
by  the  peremptory  orders  of  Pope  Gregory  the  First  ; 


202  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

orders  which  he  feared  to  disobey  even  more  than 
he  had  dreaded  coming  over  the  sea  from  smmy  Italy 
to  convert  the  pagan  Saxons.  As  first  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  he  died  in  a.d.  605  ;  and  when  he 
died  he  left  the  first  Cathedral  already  built  on  the 
site  of  an  ancient  Romano-British  Church  where  the 
present  great  Minster  stands.  But  that  was  not  by 
any  means  the  first  Christian  Church  in  England. 
To  the  little  village  church  of  Saint  Martin  belongs 
that  honour,  and  to  this  day  the  hoary  walls  of  that 
building  show  the  traveller  unmistakable  Roman  tiles 
which,  having  been  originally  built  into  a  pagan 
temple,  remain  to  prove  the  humble  beginnings  of  the 
Word  that  has  spread  throughout  the  world. 

Saint  Augustine's  Cathedral  was  small,  but,  patched 
and  tinkered  by  generation  after  generation,  it  lasted 
nearly  five  hundred  years  ;  until,  in  fact,  the  troubles 
of  the  Conquest  practically  ruined  it.  Lanfranc,  the 
first  Norman  Archbishop,  rebuilt  the  Cathedral  Church, 
and  now  one  rebuilding  speedily  followed  another,  each 
one  growing  more  elaborate  than  before.  Lanfranc's 
Avork  was  superseded  in  1130  by  a  magnificent  building 
approaching  the  present  bulk  of  the  Cathedral.  Henry 
the  First  was  present  at  its  consecration,  with  David, 
King  of  Scotland  ;  and  all  the  ecclesiastical  dignitaries 
of  the  realm,  together  with  a  great  concourse  of  nobles, 
assisted.  Conrad  and  Ernulf,  Priors  of  Christ  Church, 
were  the  architects  of  the  work,  and  so  grand  was  it,  and 
so  great  was  the  occasion,  that  an  old  chronicler 
described  the  ceremony  of  consecration  as  "  the  most 
famous  that  had  ever  been  heard  of  on  earth  since 
that  of  the  temple  of  Solomon." 

But,  four  years  later,  the  "  glorious  choir  of  Conrad  " 
was  burned  down,  and  all  the  pious  fervour  and 
exaltation  that  had  raised  these  sculptured  stones 
and  tall  towers  was  wasted.  People  and  clergy  alike 
"  were  astonished  that  the  Almighty  should  suffer 
such  things,  and,  maddened  with  grief  and  perplexity, 
they  tore  their  hair  and  beat  the  walls  and  pavement 


THE   CHOIR  203 

of  the  church  with  their  heads  and  hands,  blaspheminsf 
the  Lord  and  His  saints,  the  patrons  of  the  church." 

This  fury  of  racre  and  perplexity  overpast,  however, 
the  strenuous  folk  of  those  times  began  the  work  of 
rebuildino-  the  church  almost  before  the  blackened 
stones  and  charred  timbers  of  the  ruined  building 
were  cold.  They  employed  a  French  architect, 
William  of  Sens,  and  for  four  years  he  laboured  in 
designing  and  superintending  the  construction  of 
choir,  retro-choir,  and  the  easternmost  chapels, 
incorporating  with  his  work  the  old  Norman  towers 
and  chapels  which  had,  in  part,  survived  the  great  fire. 
William  of  Sens  did  not  live  to  see  his  task  completed  ; 
for,  one  day,  as  he  was  on  the  lofty  scaffolding, 
directing  the  work  of  turning  the  choir  vault,  he 
fell  and  was  disabled  for  life.  His  successor,  who 
brought  the  rebuilding  to  a  close,  was  "  William  the 
Englishman,"  identified  by  some  with  that  William  de 
Hoo,  the  architect-Bishop  of  Rochester. 

The  present  choir,  then,  shows  the  work  of  these 
two  Williams  ;  nearly  all,  in  fact,  to  the  eastward  of 
the  crossing,  from  choir-screen  to  Becket's  Crown,  is 
their  handiwork.  Meanwhile,  Lanfranc's  heavy  Norman 
nave  was  left  uninjured  by  fire  and  untouched  by 
those  mighty  builders,  and  it  was  not  until  the  fourteenth 
century  that  it  was  reconstructed  in  the  Perpendicular 
style  by  Prior  Chillenden.  "  It  had  grown  ruinous," 
so  say  the  records,  but  the  greater  probability  is  that  it 
Avas  not  so  crazy  but  that  effectual  renovation  without 
rebuilding  would  have  been  possible.  But  the  spirit 
of  the  age  was  altogether  opposed  to  the  ponderous 
character  of  Norman  architecture.  Men  began  to  build 
so  lightly  and  loftily  that  walls  soon  assumed  the 
appearance  of  mere  framings  to  the  huge  windows  that 
characterize  this  ultimate  phase  of  Gothic  architecture. 

The  constructional  aspect  was  gone  altogether,  and 
most  of  the  artistic  interest  too.  Vulgar  ostentation 
of  skill — engineering  knowledge  that  led  architects  to 
pile  up  slender  alleys  of  stone  to  the  last  point  of 


204  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

endurance — was  the  note  of  the  age.  Unfortunately, 
the  age  which  witnessed  the  growth  and  development 
of  the  Perpendicular  stjde  was  one  of  the  greatest 
wealth  and  activity.  A  ceaseless  and  untiring  energy 
pervaded  the  land,  tearing  down  the  Norman,  the 
Early  English,  and  the  Decorated  churches,  and 
rearing  upon  their  sites  buildings  immeasurably 
larger,  loftier,  and  lighter,  but  less  individual  and 
less  interesting  in  every  way  than  the  work  of  the 
builders  who  had  gone  before. 

Frankly,  then,  the  great  soaring  nave  of  Canterbury, 
with  its  long  alleys  of  clustered  pillars,  its  great 
windows  and  broad,  unornamented  wall-spaces,  is 
disappointing.  No  details  tempt  the  amateur  of 
architecture  to  linger,  and  the  sole  ornamentation 
which  the  builder  has  allowed  himself  in  this  long- 
drawn-out  vista  is  seen  on  the  sparely  sculptured 
bosses  of  the  groining.  The  times  which  witnessed 
the  piling  up  of  this  great  nave  were  days  when  this 
church  was  rich  beyond  compare  with  the  offerings  of 
pilgrims  ;  and,  given  riches,  ostentation  is  sure  to 
follow,  but  art  is  not  to  be  bought  at  a  price. 

A  long  array  of  altar-tombs  of  kings,  princes, 
warriors,  and  archbishops  adds  to  the  historical 
interest  of  Canterbury  Cathedral.  Easily  first,  both 
for  historic  and  artistic  value,  are  the  tomb  and 
effigy  of  Edward  the  Black  Prince,  who,  dying  of  a 
wasting  disease  in  1376,  was  entombed  in  the  Cathedral 
as  near  as  might  be  to  the  Martyr's  shrine.  There  is 
not  a  statue  in  all  England  to  rival  the  beautifully- 
wrought  bronze  effigy  of  the  Black  Prince  which  lies  on 
an  altar-tomb  decorated  with  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
feathers  he  was  the  first  to  assume,  surrounded  by 
the  Ich  Dien  that  so  admirably  expresses  the  chivalry 
of  his  character. 

The  shields  bearing  his  arms  and  badge  are  inter- 
esting. The  arms,  those  with  the  leopards  (or  lions) 
of  England,  quartered  with  the  lilies  of  France,  are 
ensigned   with   the   mark  of  cadencj^   indicating  the 


"  ICH   DIENE 


205 


heir,  or  eldest  son,  and  bear  above  them  the  word 
"  Houmout."  This  is  a  Flemish  word  meaning 
"  Chivalry,"  literally  "  high  mood."  The  Dutch 
language  has  ''  hoog  moed,"  Avith  the  same  sense. 


^^1^ 


THE    BLACK    PRINCE'S   ARMS   AND    BADGE. 


The  shield  with  the  badge  of  three  ostrich  feathers 
standing  upright  on  their  quills,  bears  the  words 
''  Ich  diene."  In  his  will  the  Prince  especially  directed 
that  these  should  appear.  These  "  Prince  of  Wales  " 
feathers,  said  to  derive  from  the  ostrich  plumes  of  John, 
King  of  Bohemia,  slain  in  the  Battle  of  Crecy,  give 
antiquaries  a  good  deal  to  consider,  for  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  this  is  all  the  stor}^  The  Prince's  mother, 
Queen  Philippa,  used  the  badge  ;  which,  furthermore, 
seems  to  have  been  not  unknown  as  a  royal  device. 
''  Ich  Dien  "  =  "  I  serve,"  is  an  expression  of  the  heir's 
loyalty  and  submission  to  the  sovereign  ;  and  is  perhaps 
a  reading  of  Galatians  IV,  i,  "  The  heir,  as  long  as  he  is  a 
child,  differcth  nothing  from  a  servant,  though  he  be 


206  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

lord  of  all."  The  modern  drawin<^r  of  the  Prince  of 
^Vales'  feathers  originated  in  Tudor  times. 

Here,  then,  he  hes,  in  full  armour,  as  he  had  enjoined 
in  his  will,  the  likeness  of  the  spurs  he  won  at  Creyy  on 
his  heels,  his  head  resting  on  his  helmet,  and  his  hands 
joined  in  prayer.  The  face  and  head  are  clearly  an 
excellent  portraiture  of  him,  so  masterly  is  the  work, 
and  so  like  the  features  to  those  of  his  father  in 
Westminster  Abbey  and  his  grandfather  at  Gloucester  ! 
Traces  remain  of  the  gilding  with  which  the  effigy  was 
covered  ;  the  shields  of  arms  and  the  curious  Norman- 
French  inscription  are  iminjured,  and  every  little  detail 
of  his  magnificent  memorial  is  as  perfect  now  as  when 
it  was  finished  five  hundred  years  ago.  The  wooden 
canopy  suspended  over  his  tomb  has  survived  the  march 
of  time  and  the  fury  of  revolution  ;  his  wooden  shield  ; 
his  blazoned  tabard,  colourless  now  and  in  the  semblance 
of  a  dirty  rag,  but  once  a  truly  royal  adornment  of 
velvet,  glowing  with  the  red  and  blue  and  golden 
quarter] ngs  of  England  and  France, — all  these  things 
are  left  to  speak  of  the  grief  with  which  the  nation  saw 
its  most  perfect  gentle  knight  borne  to  his  grave.  His 
gauntlets,  too,  and  his  tilting  helmet  are  here,  and 
only  one  thing  is  missing  from  its  place.  The  sword 
wielded  at  Crecy  and  Poictiers,  and  at  many  another 
fight,  has  vanished  from  its  scabbard.  If,  as  tradition 
says,  Cromwell  stole  that  weapon,  how  much  more 
impressive  it  is  to  think  of  the  hero-worship  thus  felt 
by  one  great  captain  for  another. 

The  Black  Prince  was  the  darling  of  England.  He 
had  won  a  glory  for  this  country  the  like  of  which 
had  never  before  been  known,  and  he  was  the  flower 
of  chivalry.  But  do  those  who  gather  round  his 
tomb,  and  feel  themselves  the  greater  for  being 
countrymen  of  his,  ever  think  how  little  his  chivalry 
would  have  spared  them  ?  His  huml)le  and  dutiful 
bearing  towards  his  father,  and  even  to  his  captive, 
the  King  of  France,  shows  that  his  reverence  Avas 
for  rank  and  titles  ;    the  cruelty  he  exhibited  when, 


THOMAS   A   BECKET  207 

the  city  of  Limoges  liaviiio"  revolted,  he  ordered  a 
general  massacre  of  the  inhabitants  and  was  carried 
through  the  streets  in  a  litter,  to  see  his  bidding  done, 
dims  the  glory  of  his  arms.  Men,  women,  and  children 
were  alike  butchered  in  those  streets,  and  when, 
crying  for  mercy,  they  were  hewed  in  pieces  before 
his  eyes,  their  fate  left  him  unmoved.  It  was  only 
when  he  saw  three  French  knights  fighting  valiantly  in 
the  market-place  against  overwhelming  odds,  that  the 
chivalry  of  the  Black  Prince  was  touched.  That 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  the  citizens  should  be  slain 
was  nothing  to  him,  for  theij  Avere  nothing,  but  to  see 
gentlemen  of  rank  and  birth  fighting  a  hopeless  fight 
was  too  much.     He  ordered  the  massacre  to  be  stayed. 


xxxvn 

When  in  the  last  days  of  1170  Becket  was  murdered  in 
his  own  Cathedral,  no  one  could  have  foreseen  how 
fertilizing  would  be  the  blood  of  the  martyr  to  religious 
faith  ;  and  not  only  to  faith  but  also  to  English  thought, 
trades,  and  professions.  No  sinner  could  be  considered 
safe  for  Paradise  unless  he  had  made  pilgrimage  to 
Canterbury,  and  this  pilgrimage  became  one  of  the 
chief  features  of  English  life  during  four  hundred  years. 
We  owe  directly  to  it  the  inspiration  which  has  given 
Chaucer,  our  earliest  j^oet,  an  immortal  fame  ;  from  it 
comes  the  verb  "  to  canter  " — originally  describing  the 
ambling  pace  at  which  the  pilgrims  urged  their  horses 
on  this  road,  and  now  common  in  modern  English 
speech  ;  while  the  great  bulk  of  the  Cathedral  would 
never  have  loomed  so  largely  across  the  Stour  meads 
to-day  had  it  not  been  for  the  fervent  ])iety  that, 
centuries  ago,  heaped  gold  and  jewels  here  for  the 
expiation  of  sins.  Pilgrimage  was  a  blessed  thing 
indeed  for  the  keepers  of  inns  and  for  a  multitude  of 
other  trades  ;    and  mendicants  liad  but  to  take  stall' 


208  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

and  scrip,  and  tramp  in  guise  of  palmers  through  the 
country  to  be  hberally  helped  on  their  way.  The 
Palmer  was,  indeed,  the  ancestor  of  the  modern  tramp. 
He  had  but  to  go  unwashed,  unshaven,  and  unshorn, 
and  he  could  live  his  life  without  toil  or  work  of  any 
kind.  If  he  were  taxed  Avith  filthy  habits,  he  could 
reply  that  a  vow  to  remain  unwashed  until  he  had 
reached  this  shrine  or  another  forbade  him  to  remove 
the  grime  that  covered  him  as  a  garment  ;  and  his 
claim  to  be  dirty  would  be  allowed.  Eventually  the 
number  of  these  palmers  at  home  and  from  over  sea 
became  a  nuisance  and  a  danger  to  Church  and  State, 
and  no  less  objectionable  were  the  hermits  who  squatted 
down  at  every  likely  corner  of  the  roads  and  solicited 
alms.  Human  nature  in  the  fourteenth  century  was 
not  appreciably  different  from  that  of  the  present  era, 
when  many  would  rather  beg  a  livelihood  than  earn  it  ; 
and  not  only  the  laziness  and  the  number  of  these 
palmers  and  hermits,  but  also  their  shocking  im- 
morality, became  a  scandal,  until  many  laws  and 
Archiepiscopal  edicts  were  levelled  against  them. 
Pilgrimage,  Saint  Thomas,  and  religion  itself  became 
discredited  by  these  creatures,  and  even  as  early  as  the 
year  1370,  the  fame  of  Becket  was  resented  by  some, 
and  the  efficacy  of  pilgrimages  doubted.  That  year 
was  the  fourth  "jubilee  of  Saint  Thomas,  when  pilgrims 
Avere  crowding  in  many  hundreds  of  thousands  to 
Canterbury  from  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  to 
receive  the  free  indulgences,  the  free  quarters,  and  the 
free  food  and  drink,  alike  for  themselves  and  their 
horses,  that  were  accorded  to  all  who  came  to  the 
jubilee  festival  that  was  held,  once  in  every  fifty  years, 
for  a  fortnight.  As  these  multitudes  of  pilgrims  were 
proceeding  along  the  road  to  Canterbury  during  the 
Festival  fortnight  of  1370,  Simon  of  Sudbury,  the  then 
Archbishop,  overtook  them.  This  Prelate  had  a  hatred 
for  superstition  somewhat  in  advance  of  his  time. 
He  did  not  believe  at  all  in  pilgrimages  and  but  little  in 
Thomas  a  Becket,  and  he  told  the  crowds  he  passed 


SIMON   OF   SUDBURY  209 

on  the  road  that  the  plenary  indulgence  which  they 
were  pressing  forward  to  gain  would  be  of  no  avail  to 
purge  their  sins.  The  people  who  heard  this  heretical 
and  previously  unheard-of  doctrine  issuing  from  the 
mouth  of  an  Archbishop,  turned  upon  him  in  fear  and 
rage,  and  cursed  him  as  he  w^nt.  A  Kentish  squire 
among  the  throng  rode  up  and  indignantly  said, 
"  My  Lord  Bishop,  for  this  act  of  yours,  stirring  the 
people  to  sedition  against  St.  Thomas,  I  stake  the 
salvation  of  my  soul  that  you  will  close  your  life  by  a 
most  terrible  death."  To  this  all  the  people  replied 
with  a  fervent  Amen  ! 

Saint  Thomas  was  indeed  avenged  upon  the  Arch- 
bishop. Eleven  years  later,  when  Wat  Tyler's  rebels 
pillaged  London,  and  forced  themselves  into  the 
Tower,  they  found  Simon  of  Sudbury  there,  among 
others.  Dragging  him  out,  they  beheaded  him  with 
revolting  barbarity,  and  here  he  lies  in  the  Choir, 
where  his  headless  body  was  seen,  years  ago,  the  place 
of  the  missing  head  supplied  with  a  leaden  ball. 

The  spirit  of  irreverence  grew  fast.  In  1512 
Erasmus  made,  ^\dth  Dean  Colet,  a  pilgrimage  to 
Canterbury,  not  so  much  from  piety  as  from  curiosity. 
Descending  the  hill  of  Harbledown,  they  came  into 
the  city,  wondering  at  the  majesty  of  the  Cathedral 
tower  and  at  the  booming  of  the  bells  resounding 
through  the  surrounding  country.  They  entered  the 
south  porch,  discussing  the  stone  statues  of  Becket's 
murderers,  then  to  be  seen  there  ;  they  entered  the 
great  naA^e,  where  Erasmus  noted  satirically  the 
apocryphal  Gospel  of  Nicodemus  chained  to  a  pillar  ; 
and,  armed  with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  Arch- 
bishop Warham,  they  were  shown  many  things  not 
usually  exhibited  to  the  crowd.  Passing  through  the 
iron  gates  which  then  as  now  divided  the  nave  from 
the  more  holy  portion  of  the  building,  they  were 
taken  to  the  Chapel  of  the  Martyrdom,  where  they 
kissed  the  sacred  rust  that  remained  on  the  broken 
point  of  Brito's   sword.     From  here  they  descended 


2i0  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

into  the  Crypt,  which  had  its  own  priests  in  charge 
of  the  martyr's  perforated  skull,  which  was  shown, 
with  four  of  his  bones,  on  a  kind  of  altar.  The  fore- 
head was  left  bare  to  be  kissed,  while  the  rest  was 
covered  with  silver.  Here  hung  in  the  dark  the 
hair-shirts,  the  girdles  and  bandages,  and  the  cat-o'- 
nine-tails  or  more  with  which  Becket  had  subdued 
the  flesh  ;  striking  horror  with  their  very  appearance, 
reproaching  the  pilgrims  for  their  luxuries  and  self- 
indulgence,  and  perhaps,  as  Erasmus  remarks,  even 
reproaching  the  monks.  From  the  Crypt  they 
returned  to  the  Choir,  where  the  vast  stores  of  rehcs 
were  unlocked  for  their  admiration  and  worship. 

To  read  of  the  rehcs  shown  by  the  monks  of 
Canterbury  Cathedral  fiUs  one  with  amazement,  both 
at  the  impertinence  of  those  disgusting  humbugs, 
and  at  the  illimitable  credulity  that  accepted  the 
exhibition  as  genuine.  Besides  the  pre-eminently 
holy  (and  really  genuine)  relics  of  the  Blessed  Thomas 
were  heaps  of  bones,  hair,  teeth,  and  dust  of  a  vast 
concourse  of  miscellaneous  saints,  with  portions  of 
their  attire  and  articles  connected  with  their  domestic 
history.  How  genuine  they  were  likely  to  be  may 
be  judged  from  a  short  list  of  the  most  venerated 
among  them.  The  bed  of  the  Virgin,  with  the  wool 
she  wove,  and  a  garment  of  her  making,  occupied 
the  foremost  place,  and  the  rock  on  which  the  Cross 
of  Christ  stood  ;  His  sepulchre  ;  the  manger  ;  the 
table  used  at  the  Last  Supper  ;  the  column  to  which 
He  was  bound  when  He  was  flagellated  by  the  cursed 
Jews ;  and  the  rock  whereon  He  had  stood  on 
ascending  into  Heaven,  were  prime  favourites.  More 
wonderful  still,  the  monks  possessed  Aaron's  Rod  ; 
a  portion  of  the  oak  on  which  Abraham  mounted 
that  he  might  see  the  Lord  ;  and — more  stupendously 
blasphemous  than  anything  else — a  specimen  of  the 
clay  with  which  God  moulded  Adam  ! 

Colet  was  wearied  with  all  this,  and  when  an  arm 
was  brought  forward  to  be  kissed  which  had  still  the 


THE   NEW   PILGRIMS  211 

bloody  flesh  of  the  martyr  chnging  to  it,  he  drew 
back  in  disgust.  The  priest  then  shut  up,  locked, 
and  double-locked  his  treasures,  and  showed  them 
the  sumptuous  articles,  the  great  w^ealth  of  gold  and 
silver  ornaments,  kept  under  the  altar.  Erasmus 
thought  that  in  the  presence  of  this  vast  assemblage 
of  precious  things  even  Midas  and  Croesus  would 
be  only  beggars,  and  he  sighed  that  he  had  nothing 
like  them  at  home,  devoutly  praying  the  Saint  for 
pardon  of  his  impious  thought  before  he  moved  a 
step  from  the  Cathedral.  However,  they  had  not 
yet  seen  all.  They  w^re  led  into  the  Sacristy,  and 
"  Good  God  !  "  exclaims  Erasmus,  "  what  a  display 
was  there  of  silken  ^  estments,  what  an  array  of 
golden  candlesticks  !  "  Saint  Thomas's  pastoral  staff 
was  there,  a  quite  plain  stick  of  pear-wood,  with 
a  crook  of  black  horn,  covered  with  silver  plate, 
and  no  longer  than  a  walking-stick.  Here,  too,  was 
a  coarse  silken  pall,  quite  unadorned,  and  a  sudary, 
dirty  from  wear,  and  retaining  manifest  stains  of 
blood.  These  things,  relics  of  a  more  simple  age, 
they  ^villingly  kissed,  and  were  then  conducted  to 
the  Corona,  where  they  saw  an  effigy  of  Saint  Thomas, 
"  that  excellent  man,"  gilt  and  adorned  with  many 
jewels.  But  here  Colet's  anger  broke  forth,  and  he 
addressed  the  priest  in  this  wise.  "  Good  father, 
is  it  true  what  I  hear,  that  Saint  Thomas  while  alive 
was  exceedingly  kind  to  the  poor  ?  "  "  Most  true," 
said  he,  and  he  then  began  to  relate  many  of  his 
acts  of  benevolence  towards  the  destitute.  "I  do 
not  imagine,"  said  Colet,  "  that  such  disposition  of 
his  is  changed,  but  perhaps  increased."  The  priest 
assented.  "  Then,"  rejoined  the  Dean,  "  since  that 
holy  man  was  so  liberal  towards  the  poor  when  he 
was  poor  himself  and  required  the  aid  of  all  his  money 
for  his  bodily  necessities,  do  you  not  think  that  now, 
when  he  is  very  wealthy,  nor  lacks  anything,  he  would 
take  it  very  contentedly  if  any  poor  woman  having 
starving  children  at  home  should   (first  praying  for 


212  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

pardon)  take  from  these  so  great  riches  some  small 
portion  for  the  relief  of  her  family  ?  " 

The  priest  pouted,  knitted  his  brows,  and  looked 
upon  the  two  friends  with  Gorgoniai  eyes,  and  he 
would  probably  have  turned  them  out  of  the  building 
had  it  not  been  for  the  Archbishop's  letter  of  intro- 
duction which  they  carried  with  them.  Erasmus  was 
alarmed  at  his  friend's  free  speech.  He  was  pacifying 
the  priest  when  the  Prior  approached  and  conducted 
them  to  the  Holy  of  holies,  Becket's  Shrine.  A  wooden 
canopy  was  raised,  and  the  golden  case  enclosing  the 
martyr's  remains  disclosed.  The  least  valuable  part 
of  it  was  of  gold  :  every  part  glistened,  shone,  and 
sparkled  with  rare  and  immense  jewels,  some  of  them 
exceeding  the  size  of  a  goose's  egg.  Monks  stood 
round,  and  they  all  fell  down  and  worshipped,  after 
which  they  returned  to  the  Crypt,  to  see  the  place 
where  the  Virgin  Mother  had  her  abode,  a  somewhat 
dark  one,  hedged  in  by  more  than  one  iron  screen. 
"  What  was  she  afraid  of,  then  ?  "  asks  his  interlocutor, 
and  he  replies,  "  Of  nothing,  I  imagine,  except  thieves," 
for  the  riches  with  which  she  was  surrounded  Avere  a 
more  than  royal  spectacle.  Again  they  were  conducted 
to  the  Sacristy  ;  a  box  covered  with  l3lack  leather  was 
brought  out,  and  again  all  fell  doAvn  and  worshipped. 
Some  torn  fragments  of  linen  were  produced  ;  most  of 
them  retaining  marks  of  dirt.  With  these  the  holy  man 
used  to  wipe  the  perspiration  from  his  face  and  neck, 
the  runnings  from  his  nose,  or  such  other  superfluities 
from  which  the  human  frame  is  not  free.  The  Prior 
graciously  offered  to  present  Colet  with  one  of  these 
dirty  rags,  and,  indeed,  to  the  devout  such  a  gift  would 
have  been  of  a  quite  inestimable  value.  But  Colet, 
handling  the  rags  delicately  as  though  they  might 
possibly  infect  him,  replaced  them  in  the  box  with  a 
contemptuous  whistle.  The  Prior  was  a  man  of  polite- 
ness and  good  breeding.  He  appeared  not  to  notice 
this  rude,  not  to  say  heretical,  rejection  of  his  gift,  and, 
offering  them  a  cup  of  wine,  courteously  dismissed  them. 


THE   NEW   PILGRIMS  213 


XXXVIII 

Soon  after  this  came  the  downfall.  With  the  struggles 
of  the  Reformation  went  the  relics,  the  gold  and 
jewels,  and — worse  than  all — the  decorations  and 
painted  windows  of  the  Cathedral.  With  many  abuses 
and  with  the  disgusting  humbug  of  the  old  order  of 
things  went  also,  it  is  sad  to  think,  much  of  the  living 
reality  of  religion  :  and  Canterbury  Cathedral  is  to-day 
an  historical  museum  to  the  crowd  of  tourists,  and  an 
architectural  model  for  students  of  that  first  of  all  the 
arts.  Curiosity,  and  little  else,  draws  the  crowd. 
Byron  has  caught  the  spirit  of  the  times  happily  enough 
(although  "  beadle  "  and  "  cathedral  "  are  not  among 
the  elegancies  of  rhyme)  when  he  says  of  Don  Juan  and 
his  companion  : — 

They  saw  at  Canterbury  the  Cathedral, 

Black  Edward's  helm,  and  Becket's  bloody  stone, 

Were  pointed  out  as  usual  by  the  beadle, 
In  the  same  quiet  uninterested  tone  : — 

There's  glory  for  you,  gentle  reader  1     All 
Ends  in  a  rusty  casque  and  dubious  bone. 

And  how  very  dubious  are  the  bones  that  are  said 
to  be  those  of  Becket  is  a  question  that  may  not  be 
enlarged  upon  here. 

For  the  rest,  a  holy  calm  reigns  unbroken  in  the 
Cathedral  Close.  Hemmed  in  and  surrounded  *  by 
massive  walls,  modernity  has  no  place  here,  and  if 
the  interior  of  the  building  is  somewhat  disappointing, 
the  exterior  and  its  surroundings,  especially  the 
north-east  aspect,  viewed  from  the  Green  Court,  must 
be  seen  to  be  appreciated.  To  be  sure,  this  part  of 
the  building  is  Norman  and  Early  English,  and  no 
other  periods  produced  such  wildly  irregular  masses. 
Added  to  the  original  irregularity  of  outline  are  the 
puzzling    ruins — ivied    wall    and    broken    window — 

*  Mr.  Gladstone  has  said,  most  notoriously,  that  to  be  "  hemmed  in  "  is 
not  to  be  "  surrounded."  But  that  was  part  of  the  political  game  of  bluff, 
and  may  not  be  regarded  as  a  contribution  to  philology. 


214  THE  DOVER   ROAD 

dating  from  the  time  when  Henry  the  Eighth's 
Commissioners  destroyed  the  monastery.  Queer 
passages,  dark  and  tortuous,  giving  suddenly  upon 
little  cloisters  and  grassy  quadrangles,  are  to  be 
found  everywhere  ;  conspicuous  among  them  the 
"  Dark  Entry,"  immortalized  by  Tom  Ingoldsby  in 
his  Legend  of  Nell  Cook. 

By  walking  outside  Canterbury,  a  mile  distant  to 
Saint  Thomas's  Hill,  on  the  Whitstable  Road,  you 
shall  see  how  thoroughly  the  Cathedral  dominates 
the  city  ;  and  arrive,  by  an  exploration  of  the  narrow 
lanes  and  the  meads  below,  at  an  understanding  of 
how  this  great  Minster  was  Canterbury,  and  how 
subservient  to  it  was  all  else.  Affairs  are  now  very 
different.  A  vigorous  and  pulsing  life  belongs  to 
the  streets  and  lanes,  while  it  is  the  Church  that 
has  passed  away  from  the  intimate  life  of  the  people, 
and  sunk  back  into  retirement.  Canterbury  is  far 
larger  than  ever  before,  and  its  modern  pavements, 
that  ring  with  soldiers'  tread,  or  with  the  speedy  walk 
of  busy  citizens,  are  raised  many  feet  above  the  street 
level  of  old  Durovernum.  Where  the  old  Roman 
Watling  Street  left  the  city  by  what  is  now  called  the 
Riding  Gate,  the  original  paving  of  that  military  way 
was  discovered  some  few  years  ago  at  a  depth  of 
fourteen  feet  below  the  level  of  the  present  road. 
Everywhere,  when  foundations  for  new  houses  have 
been  dug,  are  discovered  Roman  pavements  and  the 
walls  of  forgotten  buildings,  and  thus  does  Canterbury 
progress  through  the  ages,  rearing  itself  upon  itself 
until  its  beginnings  are  hidden  deep  below  the  light  of 
day.  Strangely  do  modern  ways  here  jostle  with  the 
old.  A  newly  fronted  house,  proclaiming  nothing  of  its 
antiquity,  will  yet  often  be  found  to  contain  much  of 
interest.  The  ugly  fronted  Guildhall  is  an  instance. 
Without,  it  is  of  the  plainest  and  most  uninteresting 
type  ;  within,  it  has  panelling  and  portraits  and  old 
arms  to  show  the  curious.  At  its  door,  too,  stands  all 
day   and   every  day,   or  walks   about  the   streets,   a 


THE   CITY   SERGEANT 


215 


gorgeous  creature  clad  in  black  knee-breeches  and  silk 
stockings  ;  with  buckled  shoes  and  cocked-hat  ; 
with  coat  and  waist- 
coat of  a  courtly  type, 
trimmed  and  faced 
with  gold  lace.  It  is 
nothing  less  than 
startling  to  see  such 
an  uniform  in  daily 
use  ;  and,  still  more 
amazing  is  it,  when 
you  ask  the  wearer 
of  it  who  he  is,  to 
hear  him  reply,  with 
a  grave  politeness, 
that  he  is  the  City 
Sergeant.  Old  insti- 
tutions live  long  here, 
and  old  people,  too. 
At  Canterbury  died, 
in  1891,  aged  ninety- 
one,  William  Clements, 
one  of  the  last,  if  not 
the  last,  of  the  old 
stage  -  coach  drivers, 
who  had  driven  the 
"  Tally-ho  "  coach 
between  this  and  Lon- 
don long  before  the 
railway  was  thought 
of;  and  in  July,  1901, 
aged  89,  died  Stephen 
Philpott,  who  was 
coachman  of  the 
Dover  Mail,  until  the 
railway  ran  him  off. 
He  was  transferred  to  a  route  between  London  and  Heme 
Bay,  and  afterwards  became  proprietor  of  the  "  Royal 
Oak,"  Dover,  since  demolished  for  street  improvements. 


A    (i  OK  GEO  US    CIIEATURE. 


216 


THE  DOVER   ROAD 


XXXIX 


The  Dover  Road,  after  leaving  Canterbury,  loses 
very  much  of  that  religious  character,  picturesquely 
varied  with  robbery  and  murder,  which  is  its  chiefest 
feature  between  Southwark  and  the  Shrine  of  Saint 
Thomas  ;  for,  although  many  foreign  pilgrims  landed 
at  Dover  to  proceed  to  the  place  where  the  martyr 
lay,  encased  in  gold  and  jewels,  their  number  was 
nothing  to  be  compared  with 
that  of  the  crowds  who  came 
into  Canterbury  from  London, 
or  along  the  Pilgrims'  Road 
from  the  West  Country;  and 
consequently  the  wayside  shrines 
and  oratories  were  fewer.  The 
greater  part  of  the  sixteen  miles 
between  Canterbury  and  Dover 
is  bare  and  exposed  downs, 
with  here  and  there  a  little 
village  nestling,  sheltered  from 
the  bleak  winds,  in  deep  valleys  ; 
but  the  first  two  miles,  between 
the  city  and  the  coast,  are 
now  becoming  gay  with  the 
geranium-beds,  the  lawns  and  gardens  of  Canterbury 
villadom. 

At  the  first  milestone  is  Gutteridge  Gate,  where 
the  old  toll-house  remains  beside  the  "  Gate  "  inn, 
and  where  bacchanalian  countrymen  gather  on  Sunday 
evenings  in  summer,  drinking  pots  of  ale  as  the  sun 
goes  down,  and  recaUing  to  the  artistic  passer-by 
Teniers'  pictures  of  boors,  as  they  shout  and  bang  the 
wooden  tables  and  benches  with  their  pewter  pots. 
Looking  back  at  such  a  time  down  the  long,  straight 
road  ascending  from  Canterbury,   there  come  many 


WILLIAM    CLEMENTS 


GUTTERIDGE   GATE  217 

jingling  sons  of  Mars,  each  man  with  his  adoring  young 
woman,  and  sometimes  one  on  either  arm,  for  there  is 
great  competition  for  these  gallant  Hussars,  Lancers, 
and  Dragoons  among  the  Canterbury  fair  ones  ;  and 
"  unappropriated  blessings  "  of  a  rank  in  life  that  does 
not  permit  of  "  walking  out  "  with  mere  troopers  sit  at 
windows  commanding  the  road,  sighing  for  that  the 
conventions  of  the  age  do  not  permit  them  to  "  stoop 
to  conquer  "  the  conquerors  of  their  fluttering  hearts. 
"  I  could  worship  that  man,"  says  the  Fairy  Queen  in 
lolanthe,  gazing  admiringly  upon  "  Private  Willis  of  the 
Grenadier  Guards  "  ;  and  how  much  more  worshipful 
than  a  foot-soldier  are  the  "  cavalry  chaps  "  of  the 
Canterbury  depot  ! 

It  was  a  hundred  yards  or  so  along  the  road  from 
Gutteridge  Gate  that  two  Dragoons  figured  in  a 
highway  robbery  upon  His  Majesty's  Mails  in  1789. 
The  bells  were  chiming  three  o'clock  in  the  morning 
of  July  31  in  that  year  when  Daniel  Goldup,  the 
mounted  postman,  came  up  the  hill  from  Bridge  with 
the  French  mails  slung  across  his  horse's  back.  As  he 
eased  his  jDace  in  ascending  the  hill,  three  men  called 
upon  him  to  stop.  One  of  them  he  recognized  as  a 
villager  from  Elham  named  Hills,  and  the  two  others  he 
perceived  to  be  Dragoons  disguised  in  smock-frocks. 
Telling  Hills  he  had  no  letters  for  him,  Goldup  proceeded 
on  his  way.  Hills  fired  but  missed,  and  the  three  then 
ran  after  him  ;  one  laying  hold  of  the  horse's  bridle 
while  the  other  two  seized  the  mail-bags  and  rifled  them. 
They  detained  him  an  hour  while  they  examined  the 
letters,  and  then,  tying  up  the  mail-bags  again,  let 
him  go. 

The  village  of  Bridge,  down  below,  takes  its  name 
from  the  small  bridge  that  carrie,  the  road  over  the 
Lesser  Stour.  It  is  a  pretty  and  peaceful  place 
to-day,  ^\'ith  quaint  boarded  houses  ;  a  Norman  and 
Early  English  church,  containing  some  curious  and 
grotesque  carvings  of  Adam  and  Eve  ;  and  encircled 
by    woods,    the    remote    descendants    of   the    almost 


218 


THE  DOVER  ROAD 


impenetrable  forests  that  once  surrounded  Canterbury, 
leaving  only  Barham  Downs  and  their  neighbouring 
chalk  hills  bare  and  islanded  amid  a  sea  of  greenery. 


Barham  Downs  commence  immediately  beyond 
Bridge.  They  have  been  the  scene  of  many  remarkable 
gatherings,  from  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  to  the  waning 
years  of  the  last  century,  when  the  Downs  were  alive 
with  soldiers  camping  here  in  readiness  for  that 
inglorious  Armada  that  never  left  port — Napoleon's 
flotilla  of  Boulogne. 

To  go  back  to  the  year  55  B.C.,  when  Caesar  first 
landed  at  Deal,  may  seem  to  the  readers  of  evening 


CESAR'S   INVASION  219 

newspapers  something  of  an  effort  in  retrogression — 
and  so  indeed,  it  is — but  when  you  once  succeed  in 
getting  there,  the  history  and  details  of  that  time 
are  a  great  deal  more  interesting  than  perhaps  the 
reader  of  special  editions,  hot  and  hot,  would  imagine. 
We  can  succeed  in  picturing  the  detailed  events  of 
that  remote  time,  because  Caesar,  w^ho  was  as  mighty 
with  the  pen  as  with  the  sword,  has  left  full  and 
singularly  lucid  accounts  of  his  wars  here  and  on  the 
Continent — lucid,  that  is  to  say,  when  one  penetrates 
the  veil  of  Latin  behind  which  his  exploits  and  the 
doings  of  his  legionaries  are  hid  ;  but  darkly  understood 
by  the  stumbling  schoolboy,  to  whom  the  Bello  Gallico 
is  as  full  of  linguistic  ambushes  as  the  Kentish  valleys 
were  of  lurking  Britons  in  Caesar's  time. 

It  was  in  the  year  55  B.C.  that  Ca?sar,  having 
overrun,  if  not  having  entirely  conquered,  Gaul,  came 
to  its  northern  coast  and  gazed  eagerly  across  that 
unknown  sea,  beyond  which  had  come  strange  warriors, 
extraordinarily  strong  and  equally  fearless,  to  aid 
those  troublesome  Gaulish  fightirg-men  who  had 
already  given  him  four  years  of  campaigning,  and  were 
still  to  prove  themselves  unsubdued.  He  had  already 
felt  the  prowess  of  these  "  Britons,"  as  they  were  called, 
and  fighting  having  slackened  somewhat,  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  voyaging  across  the  Channel  in  quest  of 
glory  and  adventure  in  the  dim  and  semi-fabled  land  of 
these  mysterious  strangers.  "  Caesar,"  he  says,  speaking 
of  himself  always  in  the  third  person,  "  determined  to 
proceed  into  Britain  because  he  understood  that  in 
almost  all  the  Gallic  wars  succour  had  been  supplied 
thence  to  our  enemies."  So  much  for  his  written 
reasons,  but  other  things  must  have  weighed  with  him. 
The  lust  of  conquest  would  alone  have  impelled  him 
forward  beyond  this  very  outer  edge  of  the  known 
world,  even  had  he  not  desired  to  crush  these  allies 
of  Gaul  ;  but  when  wild  tales  reached  him  of  the 
richness  of  the  land  that  lay  beyond  this  strait,  whose 
cliffs  he  could  dimly  see,  the  impulse  to  invade  it  was 


220  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

irresistible.  But  Caesar  was  a  cautious  general, 
and  rarely  moved  without  having  reconnoitred,  and 
so  he  sent  over  a  certain  Volusenus  to  spy  out  that 
wonderful  land  whence  came  tin  and  skins,  oysters, 
pearls,  hunting  dogs,  gold,  slaves,  and  terrible  warriors. 
Volusenus  sailed  across  the  straits,  and  returned  with 
quite  as  much  information  as  could  have  been  expected 
from  one  who  had  never  left  his  ship.  That  sarcasm 
is  Caesar's  own,  and  no  doubt  he  was  in  a  peculiarly 
savage  and  sarcastic  humour  at  the  time,  for  although 
this  Britain  was  so  frequented  by  merchants,  yet  he 
could  not  find  any  one  who  would  acknowledge  having 
been  there  ;  and  so  his  information  as  to  the  population, 
the  shores  and  harbours  of  the  country,  remained 
vague  and  uncertain.  And  to  add  to  the  disappoint- 
ments he  had  experienced  from  those  crafty  traders 
who  wished  to  keep  all  knowledge  of  the  island  to 
themselves,  this  over-cautious  Volusenus  returned 
after  four  days  with  just  such  a  hazy  and  indefinite 
story  as  he  had  been  told  before  ;  the  hearsay  evidence 
of  one  who  was  too  timorous  to  land  ! 

But  Caesar's  desire  to  see  Britain  was  only  whetted 
by  the  deceits  which  those  artful  traders  had  practised 
upon  him,  and  by  the  vague  reports  of  his  envoy. 
He  lay  at  Portus  Itius,  identified  either  as  Boulogne 
or  some  place  in  the  immediate  vicinity,  and,  collecting 
a  flotilla  of  over  eighty  vessels,  with  an  additional 
eighteen  for  his  cavalry,  he  sailed  from  under  the  shelter 
of  Grey  Nose  Point  at  midnight,  August  24,  B.C.  55. 
The  following  morning  about  six  o'clock,  this  armada 
arrived  under  Dover  cliffs.  The  cavalry,  however, 
which  had  sailed  from  a  different  harbour,  had  been 
driven  back  by  adverse  winds,  and  did  not  arrive  until 
four  days  later.  His  force,  then,  consisted  of  two 
legions  of  foot  soldiers,  equal  to  about  10,000  men. 
No  sooner  had  the  transports  anchored  in  Dover 
harbour  than  the  cliff -tops  became  alive  with  Britons, 
armed,  and  determined  to  resist  a  landing.  Seeing  this, 
Caesar  decided  to  select  some  less  dangerous  landing- 


CESAR'S   FORCES  221 

place,  and,  weighing  anchor,  sailed  seven  miles  onward 
to  Deal.  The  British,  however,  were  ready  for  him 
when  he  reached  the  site  of  that  town,  and  it  was  only 
after  a  stubborn  fight  on  the  beach,  and  half  in  the 
waves,  that  the  Roman  legionaries  effected  a  landing. 
The  decks  of  Caesar's  triremes  were  crowded  with  men 
who  slung  stones,  threw  javelins,  and  worked  great 
catapults  against  the  Britons,  in  order  to  cover  the 
advance  of  the  heavily  armoured  soldiers  as  they 
waded  through  the  shallow  water.  When  once  these 
men,  led  by  the  intrepid  standard-bearer  of  Caesar's 
favourite  Tenth  Legion,  had  gained  the  beach,  their 
discipline,  their  helmets,  armour,  shields,  and  short 
swords  speedily  prevailed  against  the  ill-protected  and 
undisciplined  hordes  of  the  brave  islanders.  The  day 
was  won,  and  the  Romans,  having  put  the  Britons  to 
flight,  encamped  by  the  shore.  Three  weeks  of 
battles,  ambushes,  skirmishes,  and  negotiations  for 
peace  followed  this  landing,  and  then  Caesar  left  Britain. 
The  equinox  was  at  hand,  and  storms  raged.  Half  his 
fleet  was  destroyed  by  a  tempest,  and  he  was  anxious 
to  be  away.  So,  accepting  any  terms  that  he  might 
with  honour,  he  patched  up  his  vessels  and  sailed  for 
Gaul  ;  and  thus  ended  the  first  attempt  of  the  Romans 
to  conquer  Britain. 

The  following  year  Caesar  determined  to  invade  the 
island  on  a  larger  scale.  His  first  expedition  had  been 
obliged  to  remain  ingloriously  within  sight  and  sound 
of  the  waves  ;  but  this  time  the  general  resolved  to 
push  into  the  heart  of  the  country.  Sailing  from  his 
former  harbour,  his  force  numbered  five  legions  and 
two  thousand  horse,  roughly  27,000  men,  and  with  this 
army,  considerable  as  times  went,  he  landed,  unopposed, 
at  Deal  on  the  morning  of  July  22.  Caesar  tells  us  that 
the  Britons  were  frightened  by  the  great  number  of  his 
ships  seen  sailing  across  the  Channel,  but  the  truth 
seems  to  be  that  he  had  been  sowing  jealousies  and 
dissensions  among  the  petty  chiefs  and  kinglets  of 
Kent,  and  that  a  secret  understanding  was  arrived  at 


222  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

between  himself  and  a  discreditable  son  of  King  Lud  by 
which  his  landing  should  not  be  contested.  However 
that  may  be,  Caesar  left  a  guard  over  his  vessels,  and 
started  immediately  on  a  twelve  miles'  night  march 
inland,  in  force. 

When  morning  dawned,  he  found  himself  on  a 
high  table-land  with  a  river  flowing  along  a  valley 
below  him,  and  here  he  first  descried  the  Britons.  The 
place  at  which  Caesar  had  arrived  was  Barham  Downs, 
and  the  river  he  saw  was  the  Lesser  Stour,  that  even 
now,  although  a  much  smaller  stream  than  then,  flows 
through  the  valley  to  the  right  of  the  Dover  Road. 
A  road  of  some  sort  existed  even  at  that  time,  although 
it  perhaps  might  be  more  correctly  described  as  a 
"  track."  Down  it  went  the  exports  of  that  far 
distant  age  ;  the  undressed  skins  of  wild  animals  ; 
the  dogs  and  the  gold  ;  and  up  this  way  from  the 
primitive  Dover  came  the  beads  and  the  trinkets  ; 
the  manufactures  of  pottery  and  glass,  which  our 
very  remote  fathers  loved  as  much  as  the  uncivilized 
races  of  to-day  delight  in  the  selfsame  kind  of  thing. 

Caesar  deployed  his  forces  along  the  ridge  of  the 
Downs  facing  the  road,  the  river,  and  the  enemy, 
who  had  entrenchments  on  the  further  side  of  the 
river  immediately  fronting  him  and  others  advancing 
diagonally  toward  the  road  which  they  crossed  on 
the  northern  hill-top  at  Bridge,  ending  at  a  point 
slightly  to  the  north-east  of  the  place  where  Bekes- 
bourne  Station  stands  now.  Caesar's  first  object  was 
to  reach  the  water  in  the  valley,  there  to  refresh  his 
horses,  and  a  forward  cavalry  movement  was  made  with 
this  object. 

But  this  advance  precipitated  the  battle  that  was 
imminent,  for  the  Britons,  who  held  the  opposite  ridge 
in  force,  rushed  down  the  slope  to  the  waterside, 
and  furiously  attacked  the  Roman  horse.  Exhausted 
though  they  were  by  a  waterless  night  march,  the 
Roman  cavalry  met  the  assault,  and,  repelling  it, 
drove  the  enemy  back  into  the  woods.      This  cavalry 


OLD   ENGLAND'S   HOLE" 


223 


charge  was  followed  by  a  general  advance  into  the 
dense  thickets,  into  which,  excellently  suited,  both 
by  nature  and  by  art,  for  defence,  the  Britons  had 
retired.  Here  they  fought  in  small  bands,  protected 
by  mounds  and  trenches  and  by  felled  trees  cunningly 
interlaced.  One  of  these  oppida  remains  in  Bourne 
Park,  on  the  summit  of  Bridge  Hill  and  beside  the 
Watling  Street  which,  until  1829,  was  identical  with 
the  Dover  Road.  In  that  year  a  slight  deviation 
was  made  to  the  left  over  the  hilltop  for  about  two 


OLD    EXGLAXD'S    HOLE. 


hundred  yards'  length  of  roadway,  and  in  the  course 
of  cutting  through  the  hill  a  number  of  Roman  urns 
and  skulls  were  discovered  at  a  depth  of  five  feet. 
The  circular  earthwork  of  the  redoubt  still  remains 
in  very  good  preservation,  surrounded  with  trees, 
the  successors  of  those  which  covered  the  hill  when 
the  Britons  and  Romans  contended  together  here. 
The  place  is  known  locally  as  "  Old  England's  Hole," 
and  tradition  has  it  that  here  the  Britons  made  their 


224  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

last  stand.  Tradition  is  not  lightly  to  be  put  aside 
at  any  time,  but  when  it  is  supported  by  Csesar's 
own  words  it  deserves  all  respect.  "  Being  repulsed," 
he  writes,  "  they  withdrew  themselves  into  the 
woods,  and  reached  a  place  which  they  had  prepared 
before,  having  closed  all  approaches  to  it  by  felled 
timber."  The  soldiers  of  the  Seventh  Legion,  however, 
soon  captured  this  stronghold.  Throwing  up  a  mound 
against  it,  they  advanced,  holding  their  shields  over 
their  heads  in  the  formation  known  as  "  the  tortoise," 
and  drove  out  the  defenders  at  the  sword's  point. 
This  was  the  last  place  to  hold  out  that  day.  Every- 
where the  Britons  were  dislodged,  and  numbers  of 
them  slain.  The  survivors  withdrew  further  into  the 
woodlands  that  surrounded  Caer  Caint,  and  Caesar, 
suspecting  ambuscades  in  those  unknown  forests, 
forbade  pursuit. 

It  was  evening  before  the  last  fighting  was  done. 
The  battle  had  raged  on  a  front  extending  for  three 
miles,  from  Bekesbourne  to  Kingston,  and  it  now 
remained  to  camp  for  the  night,  and  to  fortify  against 
a  possible  surprise  the  ridge  which  Caesar  held.  And 
so,  before  the  exhausted  soldiery  could  lie  down  to 
rest  after  the  incessant  labours  of  two  days  and 
nights,  they  threw  up  the  lines  of  entrenchments 
that  still,  after  a  lapse  of  more  than  nineteen  hundred 
years,  remain  distinct  upon  Barham  Downs. 

The  next  day  the  Romans  buried  their  dead,  and 
Caesar  had  just  despatched  three  columns  in  a  forward 
movement  towards  Caer  Caint,  when  hasty  news 
arrived  from  Deal  that  a  storm  had  shattered  his  fleet. 
The  rear-guard  of  the  hindmost  column  was  just 
disappearing  from  his  gaze  as  he  stood  on  Patrixbourne 
Hill,  and  hurriedly  sending  messengers  to  bring  the 
expedition  back,  he  at  once  prepared  to  return  to  the 
coast,  taking  with  him  artificers  for  the  repair  of  his 
vessels,  and  an  escort  suilicient  to  secure  his  own  safety. 
Caesar  had  no  certain  means  of  knowing  how  long  a  time 
his  absence  would  extend,  but,  bidding  his  legions  to 


BATTLE   OF   BARHAM  DOWNS  225 

remain  in  camp  mitil  his  return,  and  meanwhile  to 
increase  the  strength  of  their  defences,  he  set  out. 
He  was  absent  ten  days.  In  the  meanwhile  the  courage 
of  the  Britons  had  revived.  They  perceived  from  their 
woody  lairs  the  Roman  soldiery  busily  throwing  up 
mounds  and  long  lines  of  earthworks  on  the  level 
summit  of  the  downs,  and  they  judged  that  the 
invaders  were  compelled,  either  by  fear,  or  from  lack 
of  numbers,  to  remain  on  the  defensive.  Their 
numbers  increased  as  the  days  went  by  and  the 
Romans  made  no  advance,  and  they  were  now  com- 
manded by  a  general  of  great  ability,  none  less  than 
the  celebrated  Cassivelaunus.  Csesar,  on  his  return, 
was  harassed  by  them,  and  found  his  camp  seriously 
threatened  when  he  arrived.  Leaving  10,000  men 
in  camp,  he  advanced  with  the  remainder,  and  made 
a  determined  stand  on  a  spot  that  may  be  identified 
on  the  hills  half  a  mile  to  the  north-west  of  Bridge. 
Here  a  desperate  and  bloody  day's  fighting  took  place, 
the  Britons  returning  again  and  again  after  repeated 
repulses.  Many  of  the  foremost  legionaries  who  had 
pursued  them  into  the  woods  were  surrounded  and 
slain  there  ;  many  more  of  the  Britons  fell  in  that 
glorious  fight.  One  of  the  Roman  tribunes,  Quintus 
Laberius  Durus,  was  killed  that  day,  and  Nennius, 
one  of  the  foremost  British  leaders,  was  slain  in  the 
last  onset,  when  he  burst  at  the  head  of  a  chosen 
few  on  the  Roman  soldiery  engaged  in  the  formation 
of  a  camp.  Both  sides  claimed  the  victory,  and, 
indeed,  Caesar  had,  so  far,  little  reason  to  boast,  for 
when  night  came  he  had  only  advanced  three  miles 
beyond  the  stream  upon  which  his  first  camp  on 
Barham  Doa\tis  had  looked,  and,  even  then,  he  had 
only  been  enabled  to  hold  his  own  by  the  aid  of 
reinforcements  drawn  from  his  camp-guard.  The 
next  day,  however,  put  a  different  aspect  upon  his 
campaign.  He  had  probably  intended  to  rest  his 
troops,  and  sent  out  a  strong  force  only  in  order  to 
perform    the    necessary    foraging ;     but    the    Britons 


226  THE  DOVER  ROAD 

attacked  them  with  such  fierceness  that  another  battle 
was  fought,  resulting  in  a  decisive  victory  for  the 
Romans,  who  pursued  the  vanquished  and  cut  them 
down  for  miles.  The  Britons  were  now  thoroughly 
disheartened,  and  retreated  towards  London  along 
their  track-way,  followed  by  Caesar.  Desultory  fighting 
occurred  on  the  way,  and  one  ineffectual  stand  was 
made  at  some  unidentified  place,  conjectured  to  have 
been  at  Key  Coll  Hill,  near  Newington.  But,  thence- 
forward, the  accounts  left  by  C?esar  and  by  early 
British  writers  grow  confused.  Whether  the  victorious 
general,  in  pursuit  of  Cassivelaunus,  crossed  the 
Thames  at  London,  or  whether  "  Co  way  Stakes,"  near 
Weybridge,  mark  the  scene,  will  never  be  known. 
But  when  he  had  penetrated  into  Hertfordshire, 
and  had  humbled  the  British  king  to  the  point  of 
asking  for  peace,  Caisar  found  it  was  time  to  return  to 
Gaul.  Exacting  hostages,  he  commenced  his  retreat. 
Harassed  by  flying  bands  of  natives,  who  cut  off 
stragglers  and  placed  obstacles  in  his  line  of  march,  he 
reached  Deal  in  September,  sailing  thence  on  the 
26th  of  that  month.  Thus  ended  Caesar's  second  and 
last  invasion  of  Britain.  He  had  been  six  weeks  in  the 
island  ;  had  marched  a  hundred  miles  into  its  dense 
forests,  and  had  humbled  the  native  princes.  But 
winter  was  approaching,  and  it  was  dangerous  to  delay. 
He  returned  to  the  Continent,  a  victor,  with  hostages, 
prisoners,  and  promises  of  tribute  ;  but  he  left  many  of 
his  expedition,  dead,  behind  him.  And  it  is  significant 
of  how  hazardous  these  invasions  were,  that  not  until 
another  ninety-six  years  had  passed  did  another 
Roman  so  much  as  land  on  these  shores. 

The  camp  which  Caesar  constructed  along  Barham 
Downs  is  still  to  be  seen.  On  this  wild  and  worthless 
tract  of  land  which  has  never  known  cultivation,  the 
marks  of  the  spade  will  exist  for  many  centuries  if 
left  undisturbed  by  new-comers.  And  although  many 
historic  gatherings  have  taken  place  here,  no  entrench- 
ments have  been  made  since  the  defeat  of  the  Britons 


228  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

in  B.C.  54.  King  John's  army  of  sixty  thousand  men 
encamped  here  in  1213,  to  withstand  the  French 
invasion,  and  Simon  de  Montfort,  somewhat  later, 
at  the  head  of  disaffected  Barons  ;  Henrietta  Maria 
held  her  first  Drawing  Room  here  in  a  tent,  while 
on  her  way  to  be  married  to  Charles  the  First  at 
Canterbury  ;  and,  centuries  afterwards,  a  great  army 
encamped  on  Barham  Downs  in  readiness  for 
Napoleon's  projected  invasion.  But  on  none  of  these 
occasions  were  any  earthworks  thrown  up,  and  the 
fosses  and  ditches  that  still  remain  to  be  explored 
are  of  undoubted  Roman  construction. 

Here,  amid  these  long  lines  of  Roman  entrenchments, 
occurs  again  the  mysterious  name  of  "  Coldharbour, " 
a  perplexing  place-name  that  is  found  no  less  than 
170  times  in  England,  in  situations  the  most  diverse 
and  in  districts  widely  scattered.  At  least  twenty-six 
of  these  Coldharbours  are  to  be  found  on  the  ordnance 
maps  of  Kent,  and  six  of  them  on,  or  closely  adjoining, 
the  Dover  Road.  Their  situation,  scattered  thus  along 
the  old  military  via  of  Watling  Street,  adds  greatly 
to  the  force  of  the  argument  that  this  singular  name 
has  some  connection  with  Roman  times,  but  what 
connection,  and  what  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  name, 
not  all  the  acumen  and  ingenuity  of  archaeologists  has 
ever  been  able  to  satisfactorily  explain.  The  fact  of 
the  great  majority  of  Coldharbours  lying  by  the  site  of 
Roman  roads  or  camps  has  led  to  the  ingenious  theory 
that  they  first  acquired  their  name  in  Saxon  times  when, 
the  country  being  wasted  with  ruthless  and  decimating 
wars,  the  Roman  villas  still  remaining  were  destroyed, 
and  great  desolate  tracts  of  country  created.  Travellers 
(this  theory  goes  on  to  say)  could  find  no  other  shelter 
on  their  journeys  save  the  ruined  walls  of  the  once 
magnificent  palaces  that  the  Romans  had  left  ;  and  as 
they  crouched,  shivering,  to  leeward  of  these  ruinated 
and  roofless  remains  of  a  decayed  civilization,  and  tried 
to  warm  themselves  at  fires  painfully  and  laboriously 
made  of  leaves  and  sticks,  they  called  them  "  cold 


COLDH  ARBOURS  229 

harbours."  Unhappily  for  this  theory,  the  places 
called  "  Coldharbour "  are  by  no  means  always 
situated  in  exposed  situations,  and  no  remains  of 
buildings  have  been  discovered  on  their  actual  site, 
although  their  neighbourhood  is  frequently  found  to  be 
rich  in  Roman  remains.  A  suggestion  has  been  made 
that  "  cold  "  is  a  variant  of  "  cool,"  and  that,  far  from 
being  the  miserable  refugees  of  forlorn  travellers,  the 
Coldharbours  were  really  the  "  Mount  Pleasants  "  and 
"  Belle  Vues  "  of  ancient  times,  to  which  our  remote 
forbears  resorted  for  "a  breath  of  air."  We  should 
probably  be  within  our  rights  in  deriding  this  suggestion 
as  a  theory  made  to  fit  a  fertile  imagination,  but  it  is 
not  safe,  in  the  presence  of  such  an  apparently  insoluble 
problem,  to  do  more  than  present  a  few  of  the 
derivations  advanced.  It  would  be  equally  rash  to 
assume  that  the  stations  of  the  "  colubris  arbor,"  the 
Roman  serpent-standard,  gave  their  name  to  these 
places,  although  the  idea  is  plausible  enough. 

Many  Coldharbours  are  in  exceedingly  exposed 
places,  as  indeed  here,  on  Barham  Downs,*  and  many 
more  are  in  quite  sheltered  situations,  in  places  where 
dense  woodlands  once  spread,  giving  work  and  shelter 
to  charcoal-burners.  This  fact  has  led  to  the  formula- 
tion of  another  theory,  one  which  holds  that  these 
strangely  named  places  were,  prosaically  enough, 
"  coal-harbours,"  or  storage-places  for  charcoal.  It 
is  much  to  be  desired  that  some  leisured  antiquary 
would  devote  himself  to  the  elucidation  of  the  name 
and  the  rescuing  of  the  purpose  of  these  Coldharbours 
from  the  mists  of  a  remote  and  romantic  antiquity. 
The   other   Kentish   Coldharbours   to   be   found   near 

*  An  excellent  story  is  told  of  the  cold  that  rages  up  here  in  the  winter. 
Tt  belongs  to  coaching  times,  and  was  told  by  a  coachman  who  had  a  new 
guard  with  him  one  frosty  night,  when  the  temperature  was  going  down 
to  Ir."  ;  a  cockney  guard  who  was  unused  to  exposure,  and  who,  moreover, 
had  not  the  experience  which  led  the  Jehu  to  wrap  himself  up  in  layers  of 
flannel,  a  many-caped  coat,  and  three  or  four  waistcoats.  "  Ain't  it  cold  ?  " 
asked  the  guard  several  times,  climbing  over  the  coach  roof  with  numbed 
hands  and  blue  nose.  "  Cold  !  "  returned  the  coachman,  "  not  at  all." 
"  That's  all  very  well,"  says  the  guard,  "  but  your  eyes  are  watering  like 
hanythink."  "  Oh  !  are  they  ?  "  rejoins  the  coachman,  "  I  suppose  that's 
the  perspiration  I  " 


230  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

the  Watling  Street  are  at  Bishopsbourne,  Bridge, 
Newington,  Northfleet,  Sittingbourne,  and  Woolwich, 
and  all — so  close  is  the  connection  between  the  name 
and  ancient  dwellings — near  the  site  of  undoubted 
Roman  stations  or  villas.  Alike  with  the  equally 
mysterious  name  of  "  Mockbeggar,"  which  also  occurs 
with  great  frequency,  the  meaning  of  "  Coldharbour  " 
will  probably  never  be  discovered.* 

Standing  here  beside  the  road  at  evening  when 
the  sun  is  going  down  and  these  bleak  unenclosed 
uplands  grow  dark  and  mysterious,  the  centuries 
pass  away  like  a  fevered  dream.  Here  and  there 
the  solemn  expanse  of  the  barren  land  is  diversified 
by  a  few  trees  ;  here  and  there  a  few  yards  of  hedge, 
beginning  nowhere  in  particular  and  ending  with 
equal  strangeness,  skirt  the  way ;  weather-beaten 
sign-posts  start  suddenly  out  of  the  moorland,  and 
occasional  haycocks  take  on  a  dead  and  awful  blackness 
as  the  evening  light  dies  out  of  the  sky  in  long  and 
angry  streaks  of  red.  When  the  moon  rises  and 
casts  her  cold  beams  upon  the  road  and  plays  strange 
pranks  with  the  shadows  of  trees  and  bushes,  then 
the  days  of  the  Romans  are  come  once  more,  and  the 
legionaries  live  again.  They  rise  from  their  camp 
of  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  they  march  along  the 
Watling  Street  that  was  made  by  their  descendants  ; 
and  the  sheen  of  their  armour,  the  glitter  of  the  pale 
moonlight  on  their  eagle  standards,   and  the  tramp 

*  There  are  "  Mockbeggars  "  in  Kent,  as  in  most  other  counties.  There  is 
one  near  Rochester.  Some  old  buildings  pulled  down  in  1771  at  Brighthelm- 
stone  were  called  Mockbeggars.  Local  opinion  held  the  belief  that  there  had 
been  a  Mendicant  Priory,  but  this  was  not  generally  credited.  The  name 
seems  to  have  been  generally  applied  to  objects  wearing  at  some  distance  the 
appearance  of  an  hospitable  mansion,  to  which  travellers  would  be  drawn 
out  of  their  road  only  to  meet  with  a  disappointment  in  finding  an  empty 
house,  or  no  house  at  all.  Two  such  places,  so  called,  are  to  be  instanced  : 
one  is  an  isolated  rock  at  Bakewell  in  Derbyshire,  presenting  from  the  road 
the  semblance  of  a  house,  to  whicli  it  is  said  beggars  and  tramps  wend  their 
way,  only  to  be  mocked  by  a  freak  of  nature  :  seeking  for  bread  they  find, 
literally,  a  stone.  The  other  is  an  old  Tudor  mansion,  called  Mockbeggar  Hall, 
at  Claydon  in  Suffolk,  standing  in  a  conspicuous  situation,  near  the  road 
leading  from  Ipswich  to  Scole  ;  a  place  to  which  mendicants  would  naturally 
be  attracted,  in  expectation  of  finding  inhabitants  there,  but  which  has, 
according  to  tradition,  remained  so  long  unoccupied  as  to  have  earned  its 
name  a  hundred  years,  or  more,  ago. 


THE  BARHAM  FAMILY  233 

of  many  feet  are  as  real  to  the  imaginative  traveller, 
if  not  of  a  greater  reality,  than  the  moaning  telegraph 
that  runs  on  countless  poles  in  a  diminishing  procession 
beside  the  road  as  far  as  eye  can  reach. 


XL 

By  daylight  the  traveller  can  see  that  the  barren  chalk 
of  Barham  Downs,  although  left  so  long  in  repose,  has 
been  lately  cut  up  into  golf  links.  A  racecourse,  little 
frequented  now,  also  stands  on  the  ridge.  Bourne  Park 
skirts  the  road  for  some  distance  on  the  right,  and  the 
spire  of  Barham  Church,  rising  from  behind  a  thick 
clump  of  trees  in  a  little  valley,  shows  where  the  village 
of  Barham  lies  secluded,  some  three  hundred  yards 
down  a  country  lane. 

How  few  the  wayfarers  who  either  notice  where 
Barham  stands  or  who  visit  it  even  when  they  know 
its  situation  !  And  yet  that  place,  together  with  its 
hamlet  of  Denton,  is  full  of  memories  of  one  of  the  best 
and  most  genial  among  the  humorists  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  history,  ancient  and 
modern,  genealogical  and  literary,  about  Denton  and 
Barham,  and  the  genealogical  part  of  it  commences  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Second.  At  that  time,  the 
manor,  including  Denton  and  a  great  number  of  other 
hamlets  round  about,  belonged  to  that  Sir  Randal,  or 
Reginald,  Fitzurse,  who  has  come  down  through  the 
ages  as  one  of  the  murderers  of  Becket.  Immediately 
after  their  crime,  the  murderers  fled,  Fitzurse  escaping 
to  Ireland,  where  he  is  said  to  have  taken  the  name 
of  MacMahon,  which,  meaning  "  Bear's  son,"  was 
an  Irish  form  of  his  original  patronymic.  He  died 
an  exile,  leaving  the  Manor  of  Barham  to  his  brother, 
who,  so  odious  had  the  name  of  Fitzurse  now  become, 
changed  it  for  that  of  his  estate,  and  called  himself 
De  Bearham.     His  successors  clipped  and  cut  their 


234  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

name  about  until  it  became  plain  "  Barham,"  and  the 
manor  finally  descended  to  one  Thomas  Barham,  who, 
in  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  alienated  it  to  the 
Rev.  Charles  Fotherby,  Archdeacon  of  Canterbury. 
Thus  were  the  Barhams  torn  from  their  native  soil 
and  rendered  landless,  for  already  they  had  sold 
their  adjacent  manor  of  Tappington  Everard  situated 
at  Denton.  Some  improvident  Barham  had  done 
this  deed  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  the 
property  passed  through  a  number  of  hands  until 
it  was  bought  from  Colonel  Thomas  Marsh  by  a 
wealthy  hop-factor  of  Canterbury,  Thomas  Harris. 
The  hop-factor  died  in  1726,  leaving  as  sole  heir  his 
daughter,  married  to  a  Mr.  John  Barham.  In  this 
manner  the  Barhams  became  once  more  owners  of 
a  portion  of  their  ancient  heritage,  and  from  this 
John  Barham  was  descended  that  witty  Minor  Canon 
of  St.  Paul's,  Richard  Harris  Barham,  author  of  the 
Ingoldsby  Legends.  To  one  who  knows  his  Ingoldsby 
well,  and  is  possessed,  moreover,  of  some  antiquarian 
fervour,  the  neighbourhood  of  Denton  and  Barham 
must  needs  be  of  the  greatest  interest.  Fact  and 
fiction  are  so  inextricably  mixed  up  in  those  delightful 
tales  of  mirth  and  marvels  that  it  would  require 
all  the  knowledge  of  an  expert  in  local  and  family 
history  to  disentangle  them.  The  countryside  appears 
in  those  pages  under  fictitious  names,  and  the  deeds 
or  misdeeds  of  local  families  are  decently  veiled  under 
many  an  alias ;  and  yet  here  and  there  are  real 
names,  and  actual  facts  are  cited,  leaving  the  stranger 
in  a  delightful  uncertainty  what  to  accept  for  truth  and 
what  to  disbelieve.  The  manor-house  of  Tappington, 
where  Barham  spent  his  youth,  would  seem  to  readers 
of  the  Legends  to  be  a  grand  Elizabethan  mansion, 
approached  by  a  long  avenue  and  guarded  by  gates 
bearing  "  the  saltire  of  the  Ingoldsbys."  Indeed, 
Barham's  fertile  imagination  led  him  to  picture  such  a 
place  on  the  frontispiece  of  the  Legends  ;  but  the 
stranger  would  seek  for  it  in  vain.     Instead,  he  would 


TAPPINGTON  235 

find  an  ancient  farmhouse,  standing  in  a  meadow 
skirting  the  road  to  Folkestone,  a  mile  from  the  place 
where  it  branches  from  the  Dover  Road.  An  ancient 
farmhouse,  its  roof  bent  and  bowed  ^\'ith  age,  and  the 
greater  part  of  it  shrouded  in  ivy,  from  which  Tudor 
chimneys  peep  picturesquely.  In  the  meadow  are 
traces  of  walls  and  an  old  well  which  before  the  greater 
part  of  Tappington  Manor-house  was  destroyed  stood 
in  a  quadrangle  formed  by  the  great  range  of  buildings. 
Within  the  farmhouse  there  remains  much  that  is 
quaint  and  interesting.  The  chief  feature  is  a  grand 
oak  staircase  of  Elizabethan  or  Jacobean  period,  with 
the  merchant's  mark  of  that  "  Thomas  Marsh  of 
Marston,"  familiar  to  readers  of  that  fine  legend  The 
Leech  of  Folkestone,  carved  on  the  newel.  On  the 
whitewashed  walls,  crossed  here  and  there  by  beams 
of  black  oak,  hang  portraits  of  half-real,  half -legendary 
Ingoldsbys,  and  on  the  staircase  landing,  outside  the 
bedroom  of  the  "  bad  Sir  Giles,"  are  still  shown 
bloodstains,  relics  of  an  extraordinary  fratricide  that 
was  committed  here  while  the  war  between  Charles 
and  the  Parliament  was  raging. 

It  is  quite  remarkable  that  while  Barham  clothed 
Tappington  with  many  a  picturesque  legend  and 
detail  of  his  own  invention,  he  never  alluded  to  the 
genuine  tragedy.  The  secret  staircase,  the  "  bad 
Sir  Giles,"  "  Mrs.  Botherby,"  and  many  another 
picturesque  but  fictitious  character  or  incident  are 
introduced,  and  perhaps  the  visitor  may  feel  somewhat 
disappointed  at  not  finding  the  turrets,  the  hall,  or 
the  moat  described  so  fully  in  the  Legends  ;  but  the 
story  of  the  fratricide  is  genuine  enough  for  the  most 
sober  and  conscientious  historian.  It  seems  that 
when  all  England  was  divided  between  the  partisans 
of  Charles  and  his  Parliament,  Tappington  Manor- 
house  was  inhabited  by  two  brothers,  descendants  of 
the  Thomas  Marsh  whose  mark  is  on  the  staircase. 
They  had  taken  different  sides  in  the  great  struggle 
then  going  on,   and   had   quarrelled  so  bitterly  that 


236  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

they  never  spoke  to  one  another,  and  actually  lived 
in  different  parts  of  the  house  ;  only  using  this  staircase 
between  them  as  they  retired  along  it  at  night  to  their 
several  apartments.  One  night  they  met  on  top  of  the 
stairs.  No  one  knew  what  passed  between  them, 
whether  black  looks  or  bitter  words  were  used  ;  but  as 
the  Cavalier  passed,  his  Puritan  brother  drew  a  dagger 
and  stabbed  him  in  the  back.  He  fell  and  died  on  the 
spot,  and  the  blood-stains  are  there  to  this  day. 

Opposite  Tappington  is  the  modernized  Denton 
Court,  with  the  old  chapel  of  Denton  standing  in  the 
Park.  Of  this  you  may  read  in  the  Legends,  but 
those  who  seek  the  brass  of  the  Lady  Rohesia,  with 
its  inscription — 

'"*  ^raic  for  ^e  aohilc  of  ye  i^atru  ilo^ae, 
%nh  for  alle  Cljrtslen  aoinlcs  !  " 

will  be  disappointed,  for  it  is  one  of  Barham's  embellish- 
ments upon  fact.  "  Tappington  Moor  "  is,  of  course, 
Barham  Downs,  and  the  wild  characteristics  of  the 
place  are  very  well  described  in  The  Hand  of  Glory. 
The  nearest  approach  to  the  Tappington  gates  existing 
in  fact  are  the  entrance  gates  to  Broome  Park,  standing 
on  the  road  near  the  lane  leading  to  Barham  ;  and  the 
mansion  of  Broome,  an  Elizabethan  country  house, 
bears  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  stately  seat  seen  in 
Barham's  drawing. 

The  whole  district  abounds  with  legends  and  folk-lore 
suitable  to  this  wild  and  treeless  country,  and  that  so 
romantic  a  humorist  as  Barham  should  have  sprung 
from  a  local  family  of  Kentish  squires  is  only  fitting. 
The  terror  of  these  parts  at  the  end  of  last  century 
was  Black  Robin,  a  highwayman  who  frequented  the 
roads  and  made  his  headquarters  at  a  little  inn  on  the 
by-road  between  Bishopsbourne  and  Barham.  "  Black 
Robin's  Corner  "  it  is  still  called,  but  the  negro's  head 
of  the  sign  is  a  libel  upon  that  "  gentleman  of  the  road." 
He  took  his  name,  not  from  the  colour  of  his  skin,  but 


THE   "  HALFWAY  HOUSE  "  237 

from  the  crape  mask  and  the  black  clothes  he  wore,  and 
from  the  black  mare  he  rode.  Not  a  pleasant  fellow 
to  meet 

On  the  lone  bleak  moor  at  the  midnight  hour. 
Beneath  the  gallows  tree  ; 

but  almost  preferable  to  the  spectre  horseman  who 
led  a  foreign  traveller  out  of  his  way  on  these  Downs. 
Night  had  come  on,  overtaking  a  party  of  mounted 
travellers  making  for  Dover,  and  so  dark  had  it 
grown  that  they  soon  became  separated.  However, 
the  hindmost  party  dimly  perceived  two  cavaliers  in 
front,  and  spurred  towards  them  ;  but  when  the  horses' 
hoofs  in  advance  flashed  fire  and  their  riders  were 
seen  to  grow  strangely  luminous,  these  pixie-led 
travellers  thought  it  time  to  turn  back.  It  was  time 
they  did  so,  for  already  their  horses  were  sinking  in 
a  bog,  and  as  they  turned  they  heard  the  rest  of  their 
party  blowing  their  horns  in  quite  another  direction. 
Possibly  they  turned  in  at  the  "  Halfway  House  " 
that  stands  away  back  from  the  road  behind  a  screen 
of  trees,  just  past  the  eighth  milestone  ;  both  to  take 
something  to  enliven  their  spirits  withal  and  to  tell 
the  landlord  of  these  strange  happenings.  If  they 
did,  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  saw  stranger  sights 
still  when  they  came  forth,  when  the  earth  would 
rise  up  and  smite  them  in  the  face,  and  the  swinging 
sign  of  the  "  Halfway  House "  would  perform  a 
somersault  over  the  constellations.  For  they  dealt 
in  strange  and  curious  liquors  here  in  the  days  of 
old  ;  spirits  that  had  never  paid  tribute  to  the  Excise, 
and  were  ever  so  many  degrees  over-proof,  made  the 
heart  of  man  glad  and  his  legs  to  tie  themselves  into 
Gordian  knots.  You  cannot  get  so  immediately  and 
incapably  drunk  nowadays  at  the  "  Halfway  House," 
and  'tis  better  so,  but  I  have  seen  the  place  drunk 
dry  in  the  space  of  an  hour  by  thirsty  Volunteers 
marching  from  London  to  Dover  at  Eastertide. 
When  they  had  gone,  it  was  as  hopeless  to  call  for  a 
draught  of  ale  as  I  imagine  it  would  have  been  to  ask 


238  THE   DOVER  ROAD 

the  hostess  for  that  old-time  Kentish  deUcacy,  the 
"  pudding-pie,"  that  was  once  to  be  had  for  the  asking 
at  any  inn  during  Easter  week.  The  "  pudding-pie  " 
has  almost  entirely  vanished  from  Kent,  but,  "  once 
upon  a  time,"  not  to  have  tasted  one  was  regarded  as 
unlucky,  and  it  was  the  usual  thing  for  ale-house 
customers  to  ask  for  a  "  pudding-pie  "  as  a  right. 
"  Neow,  missus,"  the  Kentish  yokel  would  say,  "  let  uz 
teaste  one  o'  them  'ere  puddeners  o'  yourn,"  and  the 
"  missus  "  would  hand  him  a  flat  circular  tart,  about 
the  size  of  a  saucer,  and  filled  with  custard  sprinkled 
thinly  with  currants. 

Downs  extend  all  the  way  from  here  to  Lydden, 
three  miles  away,  and  Lydden  itself  lies  enfolded  in 
a  chalky  botton  through  which  the  road  runs  steeply. 
Downs  stretch  on  either  side  of  the  tiny  village  and 
frown  down  upon  it,  making  its  insignificance  more 
marked  and  its  little  cottages  and  little  church  look 
like  toys.  On  the  left  hand,  at  the  distance  of  half 
a  mile,  goes  the  railway,  past  that  old  village  of 
Siberts would,  which  railway  directors  in  a  conspiracy 
with  Kentish  rustics  have  agreed  to  call  "  Shepherds- 
well,"  and  it  continues  in  a  deep,  precipitous  cutting 
through  the  chalk  to  Kearsney  station,  another  three 
miles  ahead  ;  and  so  presently  into  Dover.  And 
now  the  road  leads  uphill  to  Ewell,  where  the  springs 
of  the  little  river  Dour  burst  forth  and  gem  all  the 
valley  hence  to  Dover  with  gracious  foliage.  The  good 
folk  of  Ewell  have  recovered  the  "  Temple  "  prefix  to 
the  village  name.  As  "  Temple  Ewell  "  it  was 
anciently  known,  for  here  once  was  situated  a 
Preceptory  of  the  Knights  Templar. 

The  Dour,  whose  name  means  simply  "  water," 
bubbles  up  in  springs  at  Temple  Ewell,  and  is  fed  by  a 
stream  which  comes  down  the  valley  on  the  right,  from 
Alkham,  two  miles  or  so  away,  and  from  Drellingore,  a 
further  mile.  That  stream  is  intermittent ;  being  a 
"  nailbourne,"  or  chalk  stream  ;  storing  up  water  in  its 
caverns  until,  these  being  filled,  either  by  exceptional 


THE   DRELLINGORE   STREAM 


239 


rains,  or  long  accumulation  of  springs,  there  comes  an 
overflow,  generally  doing  more  than  fill  the  usually  dry 
bed.  The  Drellingore  stream  will  then  very  often  flood 
the  road. 


FLOODS    AT    ALKHAM:    THE    DRELLIXGORE    STREAM. 

The  romantic  name  comes  from  the  old  Norman- 
French  "  Drelincourt,"  the  name  of  an  extinct  manorial 
family  once  holding  land  in  these  parts.  The  water- 
course is  often  dry  for  years,  and  the  filling  of  it  is  thus 
a  local  event,  long  ago  made  the  subject  of  legends  of 
dread  and  prophecies  of  scarcity.     Thus  the  old  saying  : 

When  Drellingore  stream  flows  to  Dover  town, 
Wheat  shall  be  forty  shillings  and  barley  a  pound. 

So  much  a  quarter  is  understood  by  that. 

Well,  then,  Drellingore  stream  burst  out  with 
exceptional  floods  in  April,  1914,  and  flowed  to  Dover 
town,  and  flooded  the  valley  at  Alkham.  Wheat  was 
then  round  about  37^.  lOld.  a  quarter,  and  barlev  was 
20s.  ^cl 

Wheat  had  been  steadily  rising  from  its  lowest,  at 
22s.  lOd.  in  1894  ;  and  barley  from  21^.  lid.  in  1895. 
Barley  was  never  so  low  as  206-.  What,  therefore,  is  the 
implication  of  the  ominous  legend,  in  respect  of  barley  ? 

In  less  than  four  months  the  Great  War,  1914-18 


240  THE  DOVER  ROAD 

broke  out,  and  wheat  in  1915  was  up  to  52^.  lOcZ.,  and 
barley  345.  7d.     The  course  of  prices,  1916-1921,  was  : 


Wheat. 

Barley. 

1916 

58/5 

53/6 

1917 

75/9 

64/9 

1918 

72/10 

59/0 

1919 

72/11 

75/9 

1920 

80/10 

108/11 

1921  

85/4 

73/7 

Prices  during  the  Great  War  very  reasonably  agitated 
the  community,  but  in  the  period  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars  wheat  rose  to  its  highest  recorded  price  :  1265.  6^. 
in  1812  ;  that  is,  thirty-one  shilhngs  and  twopence  a 
quarter  dearer  than  ever  it  has  been  in  our  own  times. 
Barley,  on  the  contrary,  was  very  much  dearer  in  1920 
than  ever  it  had  been  ;  for  the  top  price  then  was 
405.  5d.  above  the  former  highest  :    685.  6d.  in  1801. 

The  road  now  grows  suburban  to  Dover,  and  the 
valley  commences  to  open  out  toward  the  sea.  Where 
the  Dour  flows,  all  the  vegetation  is  luxuriant,  and  there 
are  lovely  ponds  decked  with  water-liUes  beside  the 
Grabble  meadows,  below  the  highway  to  the  right  and 
near  the  prettily  named  village  of  River  ;  but  as  the 
hills  rise  on  either  hand  they  grow  barren  again  and 
stretch  for  miles  right  and  left.  One  green  spot  amid 
these  eternal  chalky  undulations  lies  off  to  the  right. 
This  is  Saint  Radigund's  Abbey,  sometimes  called  by 
two  aliases,  either  "  Kearsney  "  or  "  Bradsole  "  Abbey. 
The  first  is  the  legitimate  name,  the  others  are  given  by 
its  neighbourhood  and  by  the  wide  (or  "  broad  ")  pond 
(or  "  sole  ")  that  stood  beside  the  ruins.  Little  is  left 
of  the  old  abbey  but  a  gatehouse  and  some  beautiful 
stone-and-flint  diapered  walls,  built  into  an  old  farm- 
stead ;  but,  although  so  little  remains,  what  there  is  left 
deserves  a  visit  from  either  architect  or  artist.  Through 
this  valley  came  King  John  on  that  shameful  day  when, 
having  previously  made  an  informal  submission  to 
Pandulf  the  Papal  Legate  in  the  Templars'  house  at 
Ewell,   he   proceeded   to  formally   ratify  the  gift  of 


BUCKLAND 


241 


himself  and  his  kingdom  in  the  Templars'  Church  on 
Dover  Heights. 

Where  the  Dour  crosses  the  road  at  Buckland  the 
open  highway  ends. 


"B^^^ 


^:^^''  0  ^  '^L  ^'" 


ST.  EADIGUND'S   ABBEY. 


Buckland  church  was  enlarged  in  1880,  and  it  was 
then  found  necessary  to  move  the  ancient  yew,  reputed 
to  be  over  a  thousand  years  old,  in  the  churchyard. 
A  writer  calling  himself  "  Old  Humphrey  "  mentions 
the  tree  in  his  Country  Strolls,  1841  : — ''  The  tree  is 
hollow,  and  time  and  the  elements  have  writhed  it  into 
fantastic  shapes.  I  can  see,  or  fancy  I  can  see,  snakes 
and  dragons  in  its  twisted  branches." 

It  was  not  without  some  anxiety  that  the  people  of 
Buckland  viewed  the  proposed  removal  by  some  sixty 
feet  of  a  tree  for  which  they  have  much  affection. 


242  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

The  weight  was  estimated  at  fifty-six  tons.  The 
contractor  was  to  have  forfeited  a  great  part  of  his 
price  if  the  removal  and  replanting  caused  the  tree  to 
die  ;  but  the  work  was  done  skilfully,  and  the  old  yew 
seems  actually  to  have  become  more  flourishing  for  its 
change. 

Henceforward  are  streets,  first  suburban,  but 
presently  continuous  and  crowded,  for  the  two  miles 
that  remain.     Dover  is  reached,  and  the  road  is  done. 


XLI 

Ix  the  London  Road  approach  to  Dover,  one  mile  from 
the  centre  of  the  town,  there  used  to  stand  an  old  inn 
called  "  The  Milestone.''  A  hatter's  shop  now  occupies 
the  site  ;  but  two  old  milestones  are  yet  there.  One 
says  "  70  miles  to  London  ;  14  miles  to  Canterbury," 
and  the  other  proclaims  it  to  be  "  1  mile  to  Dovor." 

This  old  spelling  of  "  Dover  "  was  common  until  the 
opening  of  the  railway  era  ;  and  the  coach-bills  of  the 
great  Dover  Road  coach-proprietors,  Home,  Chaplin, 
and  Gray,  sj^elt  the  place-name  "  Dovor,"  with  two 
"  o's,"  instead  of  an  "  o  "  and  an  "  e." 

It  will  be  expected  of  me  that  I  should  say  something 
of  Dover,  and  I  do  not  intend  to  disappoint  so  very 
reasonable  an  expectation,  although  the  Dover  Road 
having  been  traversed,  the  object  of  this  book  is 
accomplished  ;  and,  therefore,  any  remarks  I  may  have 
to  offer  must  be  informed,  not  with  the  prolixity  of  the 
local  history,  nor  with  the  stodgy  statistics  of  the 
Guide  Book,  but  with  conciseness  and  something  of  the 
sympathy  which  shows  that  to  which  but  few  Guide 
Books  ever  attain — the  true  inwardness  of  the  place. 
It  is  quite  easy  to  be  contemptuous  of  Dover,  from  the 
visitor's  point  of  view  ;  from  other  vantage-grounds  it 
is  a  great  deal  more  easy  to  acquire  a  certain  enthusiasm 
for  the  old  Cinque  Port,  its  streets,  its  piers,  its  Castle, 


"  DEAR  "   DOVER  243 

and  the  more  modern  fortifications   which  cross  the 
Western  Heights. 

Thy  cliffs,  dear  Dover  !   harbour  and  hotel ; 

Thy  custom-house,  with  all  its  delicate  duties; 
Thy  waiters  running  mucks  at  every  bell ; 

Thy  packets,  all  whose  passengers  are  booties 
To  those  who  upon  land  or  water  dwell : 

And  last,  not  least,  to  strangers  uninstructed, 
Thy  long,  long  bills,  whence  nothing  is  deducted. 

sang  Byron. 

Turning,  hoAvever,  to  a  consideration  of  the  two  other 
objects  of  Byron's  outburst  in  Don  Juan,  the  hotel  and 
the  chffs,  whether  Shakespeare's  CUff  or  those  that 
form  so  grand  a  rampart  away  towards  the  North 
Foreland,  Byron,  we  find,  was  justified  in  his  choice  of 
Dovorian  features  for  due  commemoration.  For  the 
cliffs,  all  that  is  to  be  said  of  the  white  walls  of  old 
Albion  has  been  long  ago  committed  to  print,  and  I  do 
not  propose  to  attempt  the  saying  of  anything  new 
about  them.  As  for  the  hotel  of  which  the  poet 
speaks,  it  was  probably  the  "  Ship."  The  "  Ship," 
alas  !  is  gone,  retired,  as  many  of  its  landlords  were 
enabled  to  do,  into  private  life,  and  the  "  long,  long 
bills  "  by  which  they  earned  rather  more  than  a  modest 
competency  are  now  produced  elsewhere.  The  "  Lord 
Warden,"  which  was  not,  unfortunately,  built  in 
Byron's  time,  could  probably  have  aflforded  him 
material  for  another  stanza  or  two,  for  that  huge 
and  supremely  hideous  building  was  celebrated  at 
one  time  for  the  monumental  properties  of  the  bills 
presented  to  affrighted  guests.  Magnificent  as  were 
the  charges  made  by  rapacious  hosts  elsewhere,  they 
all  paled  their  ineffectual  items  before  the  sublime 
heights  attained  by  the  account  rendered  to  Louis 
Napoleon  when  he  stayed  here. 

There  are  limits  even  to  Princely-Presidential  purses 
and  patiences,  and  few  people  cared  to  incur  liabilities 
at  the  "  Lord  Warden,"  which  would  have  brought  the 
shadow  of  the  Bankruptcy  Court  looming  upon  the 
horizon.     As  for  that  most  doughty  of  Lord  Wardens 


244  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

of  the  Cinque  Ports,  from  whose  historic  office  the  hotel 
takes  its  title — I  name  here,  of  course,  the  one  and  only 
"  Duke  of  Wellington  " — he  usually  resorted  to  an 
unpretending  hostelry,  the  "  Royal  Oak  Commercial 
Hotel,"  in  Cannon  Street,  nearly  opposite  the  old 
Church  of  St.  Mary's,  whenever  he  was  called  to  the 
town. 

It  is  not  enough  to  know  that  Dover  is  a  town  of 
hoary  antiquity  ;  that  Caesar  landed  here  B.C.  55  (or 
that  he  did  not  land  here,  but  at  Deal,  as  the  more 
scholarly  antiquaries  inform  us).  It  is  not  sufficient  to 
be  floored  with  such  heavy  slalDS  of  historical  informa- 
tion as  those  by  which  we  learn  that  the  name  of  Dover 
has  been  arrived  at  through  a  long  series  of  British, 
Roman,  and  Saxon  forms,  originating  from  the  little 
stream  called  anciently  the  Dour,  that  flowed,  once  upon 
a  time,  through  the  chalk  valley  of  Temple  Ewell  and 
Buckland,  tinkling  cheerfully  through  the  old  town  and 
falling  into  the  waves  over  the  pebbles  of  Dover  beach  ; 
now,  alas  !  pouring  a  contaminating  flood  through 
sewer-pipes  far  out  to  sea.  I  say,  it  is  not  enough  to 
know  that  the  Romans  latinized  the  name  to  Dubris, 
that  it  w^as  variously  Doroberniic,  Dofris,  Dovere,  and 
in  the  eighteenth  century  occasionally  "  Dovor," 
finally  to  have  the  seal  set  on  these  changes  by  its 
present  name.  It  is  not  even  sufficient  to  know 
(although  it  is  highly  interesting)  that  Domesday  Book 
opens  with  Dover,  commencing  as  it  does,  "  Dovere 
tempore  regis  Edwardi."  But  this  last  slice  of  historical 
provand  is  more  than  usually  welcome  because  it  gives 
us  a  foothold  whereon  to  begin  the  exploration  of  the 
old  town.  When  one  comes  to  reduce  the  tough  and 
gnarled  latinity  of  Domesday  Book  to  English  as  we 
speak  it,  we  find  this  first  entry  to  recite  that  King 
Edward  the  Confessor  held  a  lien  on  a  portion  of  the 
town  rents,  and  that  Earl  Godwin  also  partook  of 
what  the  Radical  politics  of  our  own  time  term 
"  unearned  increment."  Edward  the  Confessor  was  a 
mild-mannered  man   and   weak.     It  is,   for  instance, 


DOVER   HARBOUR  245 

primarily  owing  to  his  unfortunate  preference  for  the 
foreigner  that  we  owe  the  Norman  invasion  and 
conquest  of  England  ;  but  for  all  his  mildness,  it  is 
extremely  unlikely  that  this  saintly  invertebrate  would 
not  have  resented  the  talk  of  "  unearned  increment  "  in 
his  day.  He  was  sufficiently  considerate,  however,  so  it 
would  seem,  to  reduce  the  rents  in  his  town  of  Dover, 
seeing  that,  although  a  thriving  place,  it  had  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  burned.  The  entry  in  Domesday 
Book  goes  on  to  say  that  here  was  a  Guildhall,  and  a 
mill  at  the  entry  of  the  port,  much  in  the  way  of 
shipping  ;  and  here,  at  this  mention  of  the  port  Ave  find 
our  most  eloquent  text. 

It  seems,  then,  that  when  Caesar  came  off  here,  the 
site  ujDon  which  almost  half  the  present  town  of 
Dover  is  built  was  under  water.  The  peculiar  site 
of  Dover  can  perhaps  most  readily  be  noted  by  one 
who  climbs  the  bare  chalk  hills  that  bear  on  their 
summits  the  defences  known  as  the  Western  Heights. 
Keeping  to  rearward  of  the  Citadel,  and  walking 
round  the  shoulders  of  these  hills,  one  sees  that  a 
deep  and  narrow  valley  runs  down  to  the  sea-beach, 
contracting  almost  to  the  likeness  of  a  narrow  gorge 
where  the  old  town  commences,  and  widening  again 
where  it  meets  the  sea.  Here,  where  the  site  broadens, 
and  where  steep  streets  give  place  to  flatness,  rolled  the 
tides  up  the  little  estuary  of  the  River  Dour  when 
Caesar's  triremes  anchored  off  the  primitive  port,  and 
antiquaries  point  out  the  place,  near  the  present  Round 
Tower  Street,  where,  so  late  as  1509,  a  tower  was  raised, 
to  which  vessels  lying  in  the  harbour  were  moored  by 
iron  rings.  This  is  almost  the  only  natural  feature  of 
Dover  that  has  changed  during  nineteen  centuries. 
Walk  to  the  outmost  verge  of  the  Admiralty  Pier  and 
look  back  upon  the  town,  and  you  will  see  it  lying  in 
the  hollow,  with  the  gaunt  and  horrid  stucco  houses 
of  its  "  front  "  hiding  the  old  streets  that  crouch 
behind  in  narrow  ways.  You  will  see  the  Castle 
Hill  and  the  Western  Heights,  twin  eminences  guarding 


246  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

the  land  and  the  open  roadstead  of  the  Downs  ;  and, 
although  the  grey  Castle  crowns  one  cliff  and  the 
modern  fortifications  crest  the  other,  yet,  for  all  the 
ages  during  which  man  has  been  burrowing  galleries 
here  and  piling  up  stonework  and  masonry  there,  if 
Csesar  could  revisit  the  scene  of  his  ineffectual  descent 
upon  Britain,  he  w^ould  find  no  difficulty  in  recognizing 
it.  Only,  the  estuary  where  he  beached  his  vessels  is 
long  since  silted  up  and  is  buried  beneath  many  feet  of 
the  rubble  and  refuse,  the  shards  and  potsherds  that 
mark  the  passing  of  many  busy  generations.  Here, 
on  these  ancient  dust-heaps  and  kitchen-middens 
stands  the  chief  business  street  of  Dover,  Snargate 
Street,  running  parallel  with  the  sea,  but  now  separated 
from  it  by  the  breadth  of  the  Harbour  and  many 
intermediate  alleys,  smelling  vehemently  of  tar  and 
stale  reminiscences  of  ocean.  Snargate  Street  is  long 
and  narrow,  a  model  neither  of  cleanliness  nor  of 
convenience,  and  it  crouches  humbly  beneath  the 
towering  cliffs  which  rise  on  its  landward  side,  cut, 
carved,  and  tunnelled  ;  honeycombed  with  stores,  forts, 
and  galleries,  and  grimed  with  the  smoke  from  the 
clustered  chimneys  of  the  houses  below.  Other  short 
and  frowzy  alleys  run  against  the  soiled  chalk,  and 
end  there  with  a  whimsical  abruptness.  Elbow  room 
here  is  none,  and  to  find  it,  one  ventures  upon  the 
Harbour  quays,  toward  the  Docks  and  the  Basins, 
where  little  gangways  and  iron  swing-bridges  lead 
to  culs-de-sac,  or  end  in  sudden  and  precipitous  descents 
into  the  water,  causing  the  unwonted  stranger  fre- 
quently to  retrace  his  steps  and  to  swear  freely. 
But,  if  one  avoids  these  cryptic  curse-compelling  j^laces, 
the  Harbour  is  a  very  interesting  place  ;  much  more  so 
than  the  "  front,"  where  people  walk  up  and  down 
aimlessly,  the  women  dressed  to  kill,  and  glaring  at  one 
another  as  they  pass,  like  strange  cats  on  a  roof-top. 
Here,  instead,  is  the  reality  of  life,  and  a  variety  that  is 
lacking  beyond.  In  the  basins  floats  generally  a 
strange  and  fortuitous  concourse  of  vessels  ;  schooners. 


SHAKESPEARE   CLIFF  247 

yachts,  cutters,  hoys,  smacks,  brigantines,"  billy-boys," 
and  steamers  of  every  age,  size,  and  trade,  from  the  neat 
passenger-boats,  with  their  decks  holystoned  to  wonder- 
ment, to  the  dirty  ocean-tramp,  or  the  ink}^  wallo^ving 
collier  ;  together  with  other  craft  whose  names  are 
unknown  to  the  landsman.  Likewise,  there  are  many 
of  the  mercantile  marine  about.  One  may  not, 
contrary  to  general  belief,  know  these  by  their  dress, 
for  there  is  no  peculiarity  in  the  raiment  of  the 
mercantile  Jack — except  perhaps  for  its  raggedness, 
poor  fellow — by  which  he  may  be  recognized.  Rather 
would  one  know  him  by  his  anxious  expression  of 
countenance  and  by  that  inveterate  habit  of  his, 
ashore,  of  leaning  heavily  against  walls  and  posts,  or 
anything  capable  of  giving  support.  You  may  notice 
poor  Jack's  favourite  haunts  hereabouts  by  the  bare 
and  burnished  appearance  of  the  brick  and  paint 
bordering  on  the  Docks,  and  situated  at  a  height  of 
about  four  feet  from  the  ground,  where  his  shoulders 
have  rubbed  immemorially. 


XLII 

Since  we  are  in  the  way  of  it,  it  comes  naturally  to 
include  Shakespeare  Cliff  in  this  little  survey.  You 
reach  it  from  here  either  by  a  hideous  contrivance 
called  the  Shaft,  fashioned  in  the  cliffs  that  frown  down 
upon  Snargate  Street,  or  by  Limekiln  Street  beyond. 
Here,  on  the  way,  is  Archcliffe  Fort,  between  the  Citadel 
and  the  sea.  They  say,  who  should  know,  that  it  is 
heavily  armed,  but  it  is  not  at  all  impressive  :  old  boots, 
tin  cans,  brick-bats,  cabbage-stalks,  and  rusty  umbrella- 
frames  rarely  are  ;  and  of  these  there  are  rich  and  varied 
deposits  lying  in  the  fosse,  amid  the  scanty  grass  where 
industrious  sheep  endeavour  to  earn  a  living.  Indeed, 
this  is  the  most  eloquent  picture  of  mild-eyed  Peace 
I  have  ever  seen,  and  Landseer's  painting  which  shows  a 


248  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

sheep  snuffling  in  the  mouth  of  a  dismantled  cannon  is 
quite  weak  beside  it. 

Looking  over  the  chff' s  edge,  just  beyond,  is  a  view 
of  the  beach  below,  where  the  South  Eastern  Railway 
runs  on  a  wooden  viaduct,  entering  a  double  tunnel 
through  the  chalky  mass  of  Shakespeare  Cliff,  rising 
sheer  from  the  sea  to  a  height  of  three  hundred  and 
fifty  feet.  A  narrow  footpath  leads  to  the  breezy 
summit,  surmounted  by  a  Coastguard  Station,  and  here 
you  may  gaze,  if  you  have  good  nerves,  over  the  brink 
of  the  precipice,  and  listen  to  the  hissing  of  the  pebbles 
far  down  below,  as  the  waves  drag  them  back  and  forth  : 

.  .  .  .Here's  the  place  :   stand  still. 
How  fearful 

And  dizzy  'tis,  to  cast  one's  eyes  so  low  ! 
The  crows  and  choughs  that  wing  the  midway  air 
Show  scarce  so  gross  as  beetles  :    half-way  down 
Hangs  one  that  gathers  samphire,  dreadful  trade! 
Methinks  he  seems  no  bigger  than  his  head  : 
The  fishermen  that  walk  upon  the  beach 
Appear  like  mice  ;   and  yond  tall  anchoring  bark, 
Diminished  to  her  cock  ;   her  cock,  a  buoy 
Almost  too  small  for  sight :   the  murmuring  surge 
That  on  the  unnumbered  idle  pebbles  chafes, 
Cannot  be  heard  so  high  ;    I'll  look  no  more, 
Lest  my  brain  turn,  and  the  deficient  sight 
Topple  down  headlong. 

How  eloquent  is  that  passage  from  King  Lear  ! 

Just  past  Shakespeare  Cliff  come  the  twin  workings  of 
the  Channel  Tunnel  and  the  coal-mine,  those  notorious 
fiascos  which  have  cost  the  South  Eastern  shareholders 
so  much,  and  have  afforded  journalists  so  large  an 
amount  of  good  "  copy."  From  the  cliff -top,  a  steep 
and  winding  stairway  cut  in  the  chalk  leads  down  to  the 
beach  and  the  Dover  coal  mine  and  the  beginnings  of 
the  Channel  Tunnel.  Much  money  has  been  sunk  in 
both.  Some  day  the  Tunnel  will  be  completed  ;  but 
no  one  expects  coal  ever  to  be  commercially  mined  here. 

Turn  we,  though,  from  these  projects  to  the 
Admiralty  Pier,  that  centre  of  interest  to  visitors  and 
Dover  folks  alike.  Some  one — I  know  not  whom — has 
styled  the  Admiralty  Pier  "  the  pier  of  the  realm,"  and 
truly,  though  you  search  these  coasts,  you  shall  find 


THE   ADMIRALTY   PIER  249 

nothing  to  compare  with  it,  as  a  pier.  Plymouth 
Breakwater  is  a  great  deal  more  impressive,  but  then, 
it  is  not  a  pier,  but  is  set  down  in  midst  of  a  tempestuous 
Sound,  where  no  one  can  get  at  it  without  risk  and 
trouble.  And  the  Admiraly  Pier  owes  its  very  great 
fame  largely  to  the  ease  with  which  you  can  reach  it 
and  promenade  up  and  down  its  almost  interminable 
pavings.  Crowds  come  to  see  the  boats  off  or  in,  and 
people  are  always  sweeping  the  seas  with  telescopes  and 
field-glasses,  finding  a  perennial  joy  in  so  doing, 
difficult  to  be  understood.  The  boats  come  in,  the 
tidal  trains  run  out  along  the  huge  stone  causeway  ; 
passengers  pallid  and  cold,  muffled  up  in  overcoats, 
glancing  around  with  lack-lustre  eyes,  crawl  miserably 
from  the  decks  and  cabins  of  the  Channel  steamers 
under  the  amused  scrutin}^  of  the  callous  crowd,  and 
seat  themselves  thankfully  in  the  waiting  train. 
Other  steamers  wait  impatiently,  shrieking  inter- 
mittently ;  and  other  trains  bring  down  intending 
passengers  for  the  night  crossing  to  France.  Sometimes 
strange  scenes  are  witnessed  on  the  night  mail,  when 
passengers  are  streaming  from  the  boat-express  across 
the  gangways.  Quiet  gentlemen  with  little  luggage  and 
a  marked  disinclination  for  the  society  of  their  fellows 
are  discovered,  as  they  lurk  in  remote  corners  of  the 
deck,  seeking  to  sneak  quietly  out  of  the  "  very  front 
door  of  England,"  by  other  gentlemen — gentlemen  with 
broad  shoulders  and  square-toed  boots — who  tap  them 
on  the  shoulder  with  an  equal  absence  of  fuss  or 
demonstration,  and  these  quiet  gentlemen  usually  say — 
not  without  a  certain  start  of  surprise,  you  may  be 
sure — "  Oh  !  I'll  come  quietly."  Then  the  three  (for 
they  are  usually  two  who  thus  accost  one  of  these 
undemonstrative  and  retiring  passengers)  step  again  on 
to  the  Admiralty  Pier,  and  apparently  abandon  their 
Continental  trip,  for  they  go  up  to  London  by  the 
next  train.  Sometimes  a  quiet  gentleman  refuses  to 
"  come  quietly  "  when  his  shoulder  is  tapped,  and 
then  those  who  do  the  tapping  are  obliged  to  resort 


250  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

to  the  painful,  not  to  say  humiliating,  process  of 
snapping  a  jDair  of  handcuffs  on  his  wrists,  much  to 
the  surprise  of  the  passengers.  But  whether  gentlemen 
elect  to  go  quietly  or  to  take  it  fighting  is  not  much 
matter  :  the  result  is  the  same.  Sometimes  these  quiet 
ones  came  back  to  Dover  after  a  while,  and  were 
accommodated  in  free  quarters  on  the  Castle  Hill  ; 
presently  revisiting  the  harbour  as  masons  under 
Government  employ.  They  come  here  no  longer,  for 
the  convict  prison  on  the  hill  is  deserted,  and  the 
harbour-works  are  now  carried  on  with  paid  labour. 

And  Britain  is  proceeding  with  some  energy  to  rule 
the  waves  at  Dover,  for  the  Harbour  of  Refuge  is 
completed ;  to  the  end  that  the  battle-ships,  the 
merchantmen  beating  up  and  down  Channel,  and  the 
fisher-boats  may  ride  in  some  degree  of  safety,  protected 
from  the  north-easterly  gales  that  nowadays  strew  the 
Downs  and  the  Goodwin  Sands  with  wrecks.  For 
centuries  this  project  had  been  discussed — and  shelved 
in  the  dusty  pigeon-holes  of  the  Admiralty  offices. 
Raleigh  reported  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  that  "  no 
promontory,  town,  or  haven  in  Europe  was  so  well 
situated  for  annoying  the  enemy,  protecting  commerce, 
or  sending  and  receiving  despatches  from  the  Con- 
tinent ;  "  and  works  were  commenced  to  replace  the 
pier  begun  by  Henry  the  Eighth  that  had  been 
abandoned  and  allowed  to  fall  into  ruin.  But  when 
Defoe  was  here  the  Harbour  had  fallen  back  into  its 
old  state,  half-choked  Avith  shingle  cast  up  b}^  the  set 
of  the  tides  from  the  westward,  and  the  piers  decayed. 
"  Ill-repaired,  dangerous,  good  for  nothing,  very 
chargeable  and  little  worth,"  those  were  the  epithets 
the  author  of  Robinson  Crusoe  applied  to  it,  and  thus  it 
remained  until  1847,  despite  local  and  half-hearted 
attempts  to  prevent  the  accumulation  of  shingle. 
In  that  year  the  Admiralty  Pier  was  commenced. 
Meanwhile,  the  sea,  and  the  tides,  thrust  out  from 
Dover  Harbour  by  this  mighty  arm,  are  setting  in 
strongly  upon  the  Castle  Cliffs,  and  that  Castle,  the 


252  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

survival  of  six  hundred  years  of  strife  and  change,  is 
being  very  slowly  but  very  surely  undermined.  And 
thus  it  goes  round  our  coasts  ;  turn  away  the  currents 
that  eat  up  particular  strips  of  the  land  or  choke  up  the 
havens  with  sea-drift,  and  they  set  with  additional  fury 
upon  the  next  unprotected  place,  presently  to  be,  at 
great  cost,  referred  elsewhere.  It  is  a  game  that  never 
ends  :  a  game  of  General  Post  of  which  the  sea,  at 
least,  never  tires. 


XLIII 

Dover  Castle  possesses  the  longest  and  most 
continuous,  if  not  quite  the  most  stirring,  military 
history  of  any  fortress  within  these  narrow  seas. 
Described  picturesquely  by  ancient  chroniclers  as  "  the 
very  front  door  of  England,"  or,  as  "  clavis  Anglise 
et  repagulum,"  it  is,  and  in  very  truth  has  ever  been, 
since  its  foundation,  the  main  bulwark  of  Britain 
against  foreign  foes.  At  what  precise  period  a  Castle 
was  first  raised  here  is  a  question  that  has  never  yet 
and  probably  never  will  be  settled.  The  Romans 
built  their  lighthouse  here,  with  another  on  the 
topmost  point  of  the  Western  Heights,  but  the  first 
Castle  is  not  supposed  to  have  been  built  before  the 
time  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  the  first  reference 
to  it  is  found  in  that  oath  which  Harold  swore  to  the 
Duke  of  Normandy,  that  he  would  yield  up  to  him 
both  the  fortress  and  the  well  which  was  contained  in 
"  castellum  Dofris.'^  Of  this  building  nothing  now 
appears  to  be  left,  and  the  earliest  portion  of  the 
present  Castle  is  Henry  the  Second's  Keej). 

But  whatever  the  size  and  strength  of  the  Castle 
that  stood  here  in  Harold's  day,  it  would  seem  to 
have  been  formidable  enough  to  induce  William  the 
Conqueror  to  seek  a  landing  elsewhere.  He  landed 
at  Pevensey,  and  it  was  not  until  after  Hastings  and 
the  fall  of  Romney  that  he  turned  and  took  Dover  from 


DOVER   CASTLE  253 

the  rear.  The  Castle  was  then  made  the  seat  of 
government  for  Kent,  and  one  of  those  fierce  fighting 
Bishops,  Odo,  half-brotlier  of  the  Conqueror,  installed. 
The  Kentish  people,  revolting  in  1074,  endeavoured  in 
vain  to  seize  it ;  it  was  held  against  Stephen,  and 
eventually  surrendered  to  him  ;  and  here  within  the 
gloomy  walls  of  the  Saxon  stronghold  he  died  in  1154. 
No  sooner  was  Henry  the  Second  crowned  than  his 
advisers  urged  the  rebuilding  of  the  Castle,  and  to  this 
period  belong  the  Keep  and  the  Inner  Ward.  Sixty 
years  later  the  fortifications  of  Henry's  reign  received 
their  first  shock  of  war  when,  England  having  been 
given  by  the  Pope  to  Louis,  the  son  of  Philip  Augustus, 
King  of  France,  that  Prince  endeavoured  to  take  the 
gift.  But  hateful  though  John,  King  of  England, 
might  be.  Englishmen  were  neither  content  that  their 
allegiance  should  be  transferred  Avithout  reference  to 
themselves,  nor  willing  to  become  again  the  prey  of 
invaders.  Therefore,  thej^  bade  Prince  Louis  to  take 
the  Pope's  j^resent  if  he  could,  and  held  Dover  Castle 
against  his  forces.  England,  divided  against  itself, 
had  permitted  Louis  to  land,  and  even  to  be  crowned 
in  London,  but  the  Constable  of  Dover  Castle  at  that 
time,  Hubert  de  Burgh,  was  a  patriot  to  be  won  over 
neither  by  threats  nor  promises,  and  he  held  the  Castle 
against  all  comers.  The  siege  was  undertaken  in 
earnest.  Louis  sent  over  to  France  for  all  the  artillery 
that  the  time  could  produce.  It  consisted  of  battering- 
rams  and  stone-throwing  machines,  and  in  this  way  it 
was  sought  to  breach  the  walls.  A  wooden  shelter  for 
the  attacking  force  was  constructed  and  built  up  to 
the  outer  walls  of  the  inland  face  of  the  Castle,  and 
under  cover  of  this  device  the  soldiers  worked  the 
battering-rams  until  the  defences  shook  again.  The 
garrison  retorted  by  flinging  heavy  stones  and  fire-balls 
on  the  shelter,  and  would  either  have  demolished  or 
burnt  it  had  it  not  been  for  an  ingenious  invention 
which  the  French  had  imported.  This  consisted  of  a 
series   of  tall   wooden   towers   called    malvoisins,   and 


254  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

ill-neighbours,  indeed,  they  were,  for  they  were 
established  on  the  edge  of  the  Castle  ditch,  where, 
overlooking  the  outer  ward,  and  being  filled  with  archers 
whose  practice  soon  slackened  the  defenders'  fire,  they 
would  soon  have  brought  the  siege  to  a  close,  had  not 
the  death  of  the  English  King  removed  internal  quarrels 
and  aroused  a  united  spirit  of  patriotism  throughout 
England  which  boded  ill  for  the  prospects  of  the  French 
prince.  The  invaders  retired  from  London  and  the 
southern  counties  which  they  had  held,  not  so  much  by 
force  of  arms  as  by  favour  of  disaffected  Englishmen  ; 
they  gave  up  the  siege  of  Dover  Castle,  and  presently 
re-embarked  for  France. 

The  struggles  between  a  despotic  King  and  a 
rapacious  nobility  which  had  caused  these  troubles 
in  the  reign  of  John  were  soon  resumed,  and  Dover 
Castle  became  alternately  the  hold  of  one  party  or 
the  other.  The  most  notable  incident  in  these  events 
was  that  of  1265,  when  the  Barons  held  the  Castle 
and  had  fourteen  knights  of  the  King's  party 
imprisoned  in  the  Keej).  Prince  Edward  attacked 
the  Castle  from  without,  and  the  prisoners,  bursting 
out  from  their  cells  and  rushing  upon  their  gaolers  from 
within,  forced  the  garrison  to  surrender. 

It  was  in  the  time  of  Edward  the  First  that  Dover 
Castle  reached  its  full  development.  That  was  the 
grand  era  of  castle -building  in  England,  when  military 
engineering  was  practised  without  reference  to  ordnance, 
and  had  attained  to  a  remarkable  ingenuity.  Like  all 
Edwardian  Castles,  that  of  Dover  is  concentric  and 
has  three  wards,  enclosed  within  high  curtain  walls 
strengthened  with  a  great  number  of  defensible  towers. 
The  outer  ward  had  no  less  than  twenty-seven  of  these 
towers,  among  which  the  Constable's  Tower  and 
gateway  is  first  for  size  and  beauty. 

It  is  a  long,  steep,  and  dusty  climb  to  Dover  Castle 
from  the  town.  Halfway  up,  the  visitor  of  forty  years 
ago  would  be  attracted  by  the  tinkling  of  a  small  bell, 
and,  looking  round,  his  gaze  would  fall  upon  haggard 


THE    KEEP  255 

creatures,  gaunt  and  unkempt,  who  crouched  behind 
iron  bars  and  piteously  adjured  him  to  "  remember  the 
poor  debtors."  Poor  devils  !  condemned  by  the 
brutaUty  of  obsolescent  laws  to  moulder  in  captivity  in 
expiation  for  pitiful  debts.  But  brutal  though  we  were 
until  comparatively  recent  years,  we  must  not  believe 
Victor  Hugo  when  he  says  that  in  1820  the  grim 
picturesqueness  of  the  Castle  Hill  was  enhanced  by  the 
sj^ectacle  of  three  malefactors'  bodies,  tarred  and 
obscene,  which  swung  in  the  winds  of  Heaven.  That 
picturesque  detail  is  more  romantic  than  truthful  ; 
but  the  man  who,  like  Victor  Hugo,  could  write 
seriousl}^  in  another  place  of  the  Firth  of  Forth  as 
"  la  premiere  de  la  quatrieme  "  is  not  to  be  taken  for 
either  geographer  or  historian. 

All  these  evidences  of  a  brutal  age  are  gone,  and 
Dover  Castle  is  remarkable  nowadays  chiefly  for  the 
extraordinary  way  in  which  old  and  new  are  grafted 
one  upon  another.  Side  by  side  with  the  Xorman 
Keep  are  modern  magazines  and  military  storehouses, 
while  the  curtain  walls  of  the  wards  give  support 
to  repositories  of  Royal  Artillery  shot  and  shell. 
Even  the  roof  of  the  Keep  is  put  to  practical  purpose 
by  the  War  Department,  for  it  has  been  vaulted  and 
strengthened  to  carry  a  battery  of  heavy  cannon. 
The  Keep  is  of  three  floors  ;  on  the  third  floor  are 
the  State  apartments  in  which  Charles  the  First 
welcomed  his  Queen,  and  where,  seventeen  years 
later,  he  bade  her  a  sad  adieu.  They  are  gloomy 
rooms,  heavy  with  suspicion  of  danger,  conspiracy, 
and  intrigue,  and  are  approached  by  a  staircase 
flanked  with  secret  guard-rooms  ;  the  walls  pierced 
with  arrow-slits,  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  in  the 
darkness  of  the  place,  even  when  you  are  bidden  to 
look  for  them. 

It  is  strange  to  read  in  the  struggles  between  Charles 
and  the  Parliament  with  what  laxity  fortresses  were 
often  held  for  either  side.  Dover  Castle  is  a  case  in 
point.     It  was  held  for  the  King  by  a  small  force  whose 


256  THE   DOVER   ROAD 

discipline  and  courage  were  so  to  seek  that  it  needed  but 
the  daring  of  a  Dover  merchant  and  a  few  followers  to 
capture  it.  With  this  exploit  ends  the  story  of  the 
warlike  doings  here,  and  all  that  is  left  to  tell  relates 
only  to  Marlborough's  French  prisoners,  who  were  for 
years  cooped  up  within  these  walls  pining  and  eating 
away  their  hearts  for  very  love  and  despair  of  ever 
reaching  la  belle  France,  whose  outlines  they  could 
dimly  see  from  the  narrow  embrasures  of  their  foreign 
prison. 

For  from  Dover  Keep  the  Eye  of  Faith  may  discern 
the  coast  of  France,  twenty-one  miles  across  the 
Silver  Streak  ;  but  there  be  those  to  w^hom,  if  visible 
at  all,  that  coast  seems  like  nothing  so  much  as  filmy 
clouds  resting  upon  the  water,  and  there  are  but  few 
days  when  the  sun  and  the  absence  of  sea-mists  enable 
the  Englishman's  straining  eyes  clearly  to  discern 
that  land. 

The  famous  well  of  Dover  Castle  still  exists,  enclosed 
in  the  massive  w^alls,  and  still  nearly  three  hundred 
feet  deep,  despite  the  rubbish  and  unmentionable 
abominations  cast  into  it  by  the  prisoners,  who  chiefly 
occupied  the  second  floor  in  which  are  the  Norman 
Chapel  and  two  large  rooms,  their  walls  still  bearing 
traces  of  the  prisoners'  handiwork  in  the  shape  of 
inscriptions.  Here  is  the  Armoury,  with  matchlocks, 
Brown  Besses,  muskets,  and  rifles  ;  obsolete  and  in  use. 
Here,  too,  are  the  pikes  issued  to  the  peasantry  when  all 
England  armed  to  resist  Napoleon's  threatened  invasion. 
Down  below  (you  can  see  it  from  those  embrasures)  is 
"  Queen  Elizabeth's  Pocket  Pistol,"  familiar,  even  to 
those  who  have  never  seen  it,  by  the  popular  rhyme — 

Load  me  well  and  keep  me  clean, 
And  I'll  carry  a  ball  to  Calais  Green ; 

and  all  around  are  batteries  old  and  new. 

The  sentry  on  Dover  Keep  at  night,  when  all  the 
world  is  still,  has  leisure  for  contemiDlation.  When  the 
moon  rises  in  solemn  majesty  on  summer  nights  and 


HISTORY   AT   DOVER  257 

makes  a  lane  of  silvery  glory  across  the  Channel  ; 
when  the  winking  light  from  Cape  Grisnez  shows  where 
the  French  coast  lies,  and  the  glow  from  the  lighthouse 
on  the  Admiralty  Pier  marks  the  harbour  at  his  feet  ; 
when  Dover  lamps  burn  yellow  beside  the  moonrays, 
and  the  high-road  to  London  lies  stark  and  white  in  the 
valley  of  the  Dour,  then  may  the  sentry  on  his  eyrie 
hear,  between  the  ghostly  tapping  of  the  halyards  on 
the  flagstaff,  the  tramp  of  the  ages.  Forty  centuries 
looked  down  upon  the  French  in  Egypt  ;  the  sentry  on 
Dover  Castle  looks  upon  nineteen  hundred  years  of 
invasion  and  foreign  expeditions.  There,  where 
Dover  streets  now  stand,  rode  Csesar's  galleys  and  there 
our  ancestors  bled  for  their  country.  Down  that  white 
highway,  so  still  at  this  midnight  hour,  have  marched 
many  generations  of  archers,  men-at-arms,  and  soldiers 
of  a  more  recent  era,  to  return,  covered  with  wounds  and 
glory  ;  and  across  that  shining  sea  have  sailed  fleets 
innumerable.  For  a  distance  of  four  hundred  feet 
below  him  run  a  series  of  fortified  galleries  and 
platforms,  built  in  the  Castle  Keep  or  excavated  through 
the  solid  chalk  down  to  sea-level  ;  while  level  with  him, 
rise  the  Western  Heights,  rich  in  heavy  ordnance, 
across  the  town.  Here,  then,  is  the  end  of  the  Dover 
Road,  looking  out  across  the  sea  ;  and  he  must  needs 
be  dull  of  brain  who  does  not  perceive  the  epic  fitness 
of  its  ending. 


THE    END 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Alkham   238 

Bapchild 144,  162 

Barham 233 

Barham  Downs    1,  96,  218,  222-233,  236 

Barham  Family 233-235 

Barham.  Rev.  Richard  Harris   ...80,  234 

Berket,  Thomas  a 13,  18.  19,  95,  134 

151,  186,  194,  197,  207-213,  216,  233 

Bell  Grove 44 

Bexley 45 

Bexley  Heath 44,  45-47 

Blackheath  18,  24-35 

Black  Prince,  The  185,  204-207 

Black  Robin's  Corner 236 

Borough,    The 7-18 

Bossenden  Woods  179-182 

Boughton-under-Blean  172,  173, 179,  181 

Bridge  217 

Broome  Park 236 

Buckland 241 

Cade,  Jack 6,  31 

Caesar,  Julius    ...1,  96,  145,  148,  218-226 
244-246 

Canterbury     3,  74,  97,  174,  183 

187-216   228 
Canterbury  Pilgrims  11-18,  172,  18.3-186 
194-197,  207-213,  216 
Caroline,  Princess  of  Wales  and 

Queen    25,  56 

Chalk ...66,  81-86 

Charles  II 33,  68,  70,  89,  90,  121 

Charlton  34,  35 

Chatham  126-140,  200 

Chaucer.  Geoffrey 11,  172,  183,  184 

"  Church  Ales  "    82 

Clavell,  John 87 

Cleves,  Anne  of  117-119 

Coaches : — 

"  Blue-eyed  Maid  " 8 

"  Defiance  " 3 

"  Eagle" 3 

"  Express  " 3,  4 

"  Foreign  Mall  " 3 

"  Phoenix" 3 

"  Royal  Mail  " 3 

"  Tally-ho  " 3,  216 

"  Telegraph  "  3 

"  Union  " 3 

"  Worthington's  Safety  "  3 

Coaching 3-5,  23,  39,  45,  58,  92,  216 

Coal  and  Wine  Dues 50 

Cobham  Park 61,  97 

"  Coldharbours  " 228-230 


PAGE 

Colet,  Dean 185,  209-212 

Court«nay's  Rebell  on 175-183 

Crayford  47-49 

Crook  Long  45 

Cycling  Records 201 

"  Danes  "  Holes  46 

Dartford 49-60,  97,  118,  200 

Denton,  near  Canterbury 233-236 

Denton  by  Gravesend  79-81 

Deptford  23 

Dickens,  Charles... 81,  87,  90-93,  102-104 
106,  126,  141 

Don  Juan 37-39,  213,  243 

Dover  220,  242-257 

Drellingore  Stream  239 

Dunkirk 181-183 

EUzabeth,  Queen 6,  23,  26,  119 

Erasmus,  Disiderius 185,  209-212 

Falstaff,  Sir  John 87,  93 

Faversham  146,  166,  170-172 

Gad's  Hill 86-95 

Gravesend 4,  18,  60,  62,  66-70,  86,  91 

Greenhithe 60,  62,  89 

Greenstreet 163 

Greenwich  Park 25 

Guudulf,  Bishop  54 

Gutteridge  Gate 216 

Harbledown 173,  183-186,  194 

Hengist  and  Horsa 48 

Henry  V 30,  154 

Henry  VIII 117-119,  151,  195-197 

Hermits 55,  151-153,  161,  163,  171 

Hernhill 168,181 

Highwaymen  ....25,  36-40,  71,  87-90,  217 

Hops 163 

Horn's  Cross 62 

Huggens*  College 66 

Ingoldsby  Legends,  The    80,  134,  234-236 

"  Ingoldsby  Abbey  "  80 

Inns  (mentioned  at  length)  : — 

"  Blue-eyed  Maid,"  Southwark 8 

"Bull,"  Dartford 55,  107 

"  Bull,"  Rochester 107 

"  Bull,"  Shooter's  Hill  36 

"  Crispin  and  Crispianus," 

Strood 101,  171 

"  Crown,"  Rochester 119 

"  Falstaff,"  Canterbury 187 

"  Falstaff,"  (Jad'9  Hill 90,  94 


THE   DOVER  ROAD 


PAGE 
Inns  (mentioned  at  length) — continued — 

"  George,"  Sittingbourne  155 

"  George,"  Southwark 7.  8 

"  Golden  Cross,"  Xew  Cross 22 

"  Gun,"  Sittingbourne 156 

"  Half  Moon,"  Southwark 8 

"Key,"  Key  Street 148 

"  Lion,"  Sittingbourne 155,  160 

"  Lord  Nelson."  Chalk 86 

"  Eed  Lion,"  Canterbiu-y  189-192 

"  Red  Lion,"  Dunkirk  181,  182 

"  Red  Lion,"  Sittingbourne 154 

"  Rose,"  Canterbviry 174, 189 

"  Rose,"  Sittingbourne 155 

"  Spur,"  Southwark 8 

"  Tabard,"  Southwark 8,  12, 13, 18 

"  White  Hart,"  Sittingbourne  156,  157 

James  IT 70,  121,  170 

"  Jezreel,  James  Jershom  "  137-140 

John's  Hole 62 

Kearsney  2,  38,  240 

Kent  Street 9 

Key  Street 97,  148 

Kidbrook 34,  35 


London  Bridge  2,  5-7,  12,  19, 
Lydden , 


44.  200 


Marlowe,  Christopher  23 

"  Milestones  on  the  Dover  Road  " 19 

Milton-next-Gravesend  77-79 

Milton-next-Sittingbourne   146,  153,  159 

"  Mockbeggars  " 230 

Moor  Street 141 

Murston 153,  161 

Nevison,  John 90 

New  Cross 21,  23,  200 

Newington  142-149,  226 

Northfleet 61,  62-64,  66,  97 

"  Old  England's  Hole  " 223 

Old  Kent  Road 5,  19-22,  200 

Old-Time  Travellers,  in  general  11-18,  22 
56,  70-77,  87-90,  115-122 
183-186,  190-201 
Old-Time  Travellers  :— 
Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,  Prince 

Consort 199-201 

Bassompierre,  Marshal  de 70 

Cossuma  Albertus,  Prince 89 

Dalkeith,  Countess  of 198 

Grosley,  M 73-77 

Henrietta  Maria,  Princess 198 

Moritz,  Pastor 56 

Nivernais,  Due  de 104,  190-194 


PAGE 

Old-Time  Travellers — continued — 

Peel,  Sir  Robert 199 

Rochefort,  M.  Jouvin  de 71 

Sorbiere,  M.  Samuel  de 72 

Zinzerling,  Herr  Justus 154 

Ospringe  97,  145,  149,  161,  165 

Pepys,  Samuel 36,  121 

Pilgrims  11-18, 161,  172,  183-186,  207-213 
Preston 166 

Radfield  163 

Rainham 140-142 

River 240 

Rochester 95,  97,  102-125,  200 

Rochester  Castle 54,  106,  114 

Rochester  Cathedral 54,  105,  108-113 

Romans,  The 27,  47,  60,  76,  95-99 

144-148,  199,  218-233,  244 
Rosherville  Gardens 64 

St.  Radigund's  Abbey 240 

St.  Thomas  a  Watering 18 

St.  WiUiam  of  Perth Ill 

Schamel,  Hermitage  of  151-153 

Shooter's  Hill  35-40 

Shoulder  of  Mutton  Green 44 

Sittingbourne 97,  144,  150-161 

Southwark 7-18 

Spielman,  Sir  John 51-53 

Springhead 61,  65 

Stone  62 

Strood 60,  61,  94,  97,  100-102 

Swanscombe 60 

Tappington,  Everard 236 

Telegraph  Hill  11 

Telegraph  Tower,  Southwark 9-11 

Temple  Ewell 238,  240 

Teynham 163 

Thom,  John  Nichols  (calling  himself 
"  Sir  William  Percy  Honey  wood 

Courtenay  ")  174-183 

Tong 163 

Tramps 41-44 

Turnpike  Gates 62,  216 

Turpin,  Dick 90 

Tyler,  Wat 27-30,57 

Watercress 65 

Watling  Street 34,  47,  60,  95-99 

144-148,  214,  223 

Watts,  Richard 119 

Welling  44 

White  Hill 49 

Wolsey,  Cardinal 31,  195 


^mMBi  Family  Library  of  S/eiennaty  Medmm 

CyifWiiTBgs  School  of  Veterinary  medmm  at 
Tufts  University 

100  Westboro  Road 


1> 


m 


isil 


\m 


wm 


